Effects of Delphinidin-3-Sambubiosid on Different Pathways of Human Cells According to a Bioinformatic Analysis

The use of food and its nutrients as a remedy for diseases is historically and culturally well rooted in plenty of societies. An example of this is the use of Hibiscus sabdariffa to treat conditions like hypertension or high blood glucose. Furthermore, the natural biocompounds present in this plant have been demonstrated by several authors to be hypotensive, antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, antiobesogenic, etc. One of these compounds is Delphinidin-3-Sambubiosid (DS3), the most representative anthocyanin of Hibiscus sabdariffa, and as such, it has been proposed to have the beneficial effects previously mentioned. However, little is known about the molecular targets of DS3. Therefore, we conducted an in silico analysis using different bioinformatic tools to determine the possible molecular targets of this molecule and the potential impact the modification of its targets could have on the proteins and/or pathways of humans. We used the Swiss Target Prediction site to identify all the molecular targets of DS3, and then ShinnyGo 0.77, KEGG, and Stringdb were used to identify key pathways and hub genes related to them. Also, a literature search was conducted in PubMed, where each of the hub genes was linked to DS3 so we could gather information that complemented the results of the bioinformatic tools. The results show that DS3 can modify the behavior of genes related to nitrogen and glucose metabolism, inflammation, angiogenesis, and cell proliferation. Additionally, DS3 has direct effects on the PI3K-AKT pathway, which could be a key finding promoting further research, especially to determine the implications associated with changes in the aforementioned pathway.