Objective  To explore the active components and mechanism of Wuwei Kuanjin Decoction in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) based on network pharmacology and molecular docking.

Methods  The potential active components of Wuwei Kuanjin Decoction and their targets were obtained from Herb, CNKI, PubChem and SwissTargetPrediction databases. The disease targets of RA were collected from databases such as GeneCards. A Venn diagram of the intersection targets between Wuwei Kuanjin Decoction active components and RA was generated using the Venny 2.1.0 platform. The "drug-component-target-disease" network was constructed using Cytoscape 3.10.0 software. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using the STRING database. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses were performed via the DAVID database to identify core targets and key pathways. Molecular docking was used to validate the interactions between active components and core targets.

Results  A total of 96 active components in Wuwei Kuanjin Decoction, 1 268 RA-related targets, and 198 intersection targets between the drug and disease were screened. The main active ingredients of Wuwei Kuanjin Decoction were syringin, gallic acid, luteolin, kaempferol, corilagin, and gentiopicroside. The core targets included IL-6, GAPDH, SRC, EGFR, CASP3 and MAPK3. Main pathways involved MAPK, PI3K-Akt, HIF-1 and other signaling pathways. Molecular docking verified that the main active components of Wuwei Kuanjin Decoction exhibited good binding affinity with core RA tar-gets.

Conclusion Wuwei Kuanjin Decoction treats RA through multiple components, targets, and pathways, and it synergistically alleviate inflammatory responses via various mechanisms.

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