Cordycepin enhances anti-tumor immunity in breast cancer by enhanceing ALB expression

Objective The treatment of breast cancer still faces great challenges, and it is necessary to continuously explore effective drugs and targets to promote immune precision medicine. This study aims to investigate the immune-related regulatory mechanism of cordycepin in breast cancer. Methods Network pharmacology was employed to discovery the action of cordyceps on breast cancer targets, molecular docking was employed to analyze the interaction pattern between core components and targets, and biological information analysis was used to explore the target-related immune mechanism and verified in vitro experiments. Results The results of this study indicate that cordycepin can effectively inhibit breast cancer. The roles of cordycepin's active component and its target gene ALB were elucidated through the combined use of network pharmacology and molecular docking. Bioinformatics analysis revealed convincing associations between ALB and many immune pathway marker genes. ALB was inhibited in tumor expression, and cordycepin was found to enhance the expression of ALB in vitro to play an anti-tumor role. Conclusion Cordycepin regulates immune suppression of tumor, which is expected to open a new chapter of breast cancer immunotherapy.