Drug-Protein Target Identification by Network Analysis for the Activation of PKC/DAG Pathway In Diabetes

The number of diabetes patients is going to increase steadily over the coming years. The diabetes complication has sparked significant interestind eveloping new drugs to control the disease. Hyperglycemia is a major trigger for the oxidative stress that causes type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Activation of the protein kinase C pathway (PKC/DAG) plays an important role in hyperglycemia-induced diabetes. There are many significant proteins involved in the pathway. The present work aims to target protein-protein interactions of the PKC/DAG pathway for diabetes drug discovery in both chemical synthesis and bioactive compounds extracted from natural sources. Classical centrality indexes of network topology and network clustering analysis are used to identify significant protein clusters in the PKC/DAG pathway. Then the protein-drug interaction is analyzed for each protein cluster. The ultimate goal of this work is to discover a combination of traditional and phytochemical drugs to directly treat diabetes through the PKC/DAG pathway.