الملخص
BACKGROUND: Existing cell experiments, animal experiments and clinical experiments have found that Yougui Yin can play a positive role in steroid-induced femoral head necrosis, but the specific pharmacological mechanism of Yougui Yin is not described. OBJECTIVE: To explore the mechanism of Yougui Yin in the treatment of steroid-induced femoral head necrosis based on network pharmacology, and to provide a theoretical basis for the clinical application of Yougui Yin in the treatment of steroid-induced femoral head necrosis. METHODS: The Chinese Medicine Computing System Pharmacology Analysis Platform (TCMSP) was used, with oral bioavailability and drug-like properties as the limiting conditions, to retrieve the main active ingredients of six kinds of traditional Chinese medicines including Monkshood, Cinnamon, Rehmannia glutinosa, Cornus officinalis, stir-baked rhizoma dioscoreae, wolfberry in Yougui Yin and predict key target genes. Target genes related to steroid-induced femoral head necrosis were searched in OMIM and GeneCards databases, and the intersection target genes of Yougui Yin and steroid-induced femoral head necrosis were obtained through R language, followed by drawing the Wayne diagram. Using Cytoscape 3.6.1 software, we drew a “component-disease-target” Chinese medicine regulatory network, and then established a protein-protein interaction network with the help of the STRING platform. Finally, the R language and Bioconductor platform were used to perform gene ontology enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis on the intersection genes. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: There were 43 main effective components in Yougui Yin, including quercetin, glycotein, diosgenin, karanjin, stigmasterol, etc. and 102 key target genes, including ESR1, AKT1, NCOA1, PTGS1, JUN, etc. Gene ontology enrichment analysis revealed 137 molecular functions, 2 119 biological processes and 41 cell components. KEGG pathway analysis yielded 153 signal pathways. To conclude, Yougui Yin may play an anti-osteoporosis and anti-inflammatory role by regulating steroid hormone receptor, phosphatase binding and other molecular functions, participating in biological processes such as active oxygen metabolism and steroid hormone response, affecting cell composition such as membrane raft and RNA polymerase II transcription factor complex, so as to treat steroid-induced femoral head necrosis with the help of endocrine resistance and other signal pathways.