Bingjie Ma,1 Pengyi Hou,2 Ran Liu,3 Aijun Cang,1 Limei Zhao4 

1Department of Pharmacy, People’s Hospital of Liaoning Province, Shenyang, 110010, People’s Republic of China; 2SCIEX Analytical Instrument Trading Co, Shanghai, 200000, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Food and Drug, Shenzhen Polytechnic, Shenzhen, 518000, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Pharmacy, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110010, People’s Republic of China

Correspondence: Limei Zhao, Department of Pharmacy, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110010, People’s Republic of China, Email lmzhao19@163.com

Background: Chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression (CIM) is a common adverse reaction with a high incidence rate that seriously affects human health. Shengyu Decoction (SYD) is often used to treat CIM. However, its pharmacodynamic basis and therapeutic mechanisms remain unclear.
Purpose: This study aimed to clarify the active components and mechanisms of SYD in CIM.
Methods: LC-QTOF/MS was used to identify the absorbable components of SYD. A series of network pharmacology methods have been applied to explore hub targets and potential mechanisms. Molecular docking was used to identify the binding ability of potential active ingredients and hub targets. Finally, in vitro experiments were performed to validate these findings.
Results: In this study, 33 absorbable prototype components were identified using LC-QTOF/MS. A total of 62 possible targets of SYD in myelosuppression were identified. KEGG pathway enrichment analyses showed that some signaling pathways such as PI3K-Akt and HIF-1 may be the mechanisms by which it functions. Among them, we verified the PI3K-Akt pathway. 6 Hub proteins were screened by Protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis. Molecular docking results showed that four absorbable components in SYD showed good binding with six Hub targets. The effectiveness of the four predicted compounds and the mechanism were verified in vitro. It has also been shown that the active component could promote the proliferation of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) and block apoptosis of BMSCs, which may be related to the PI3K-Akt pathway. This result is consistent with the network pharmacology approach and molecular docking predictions.
Conclusion: Our results provided not only the candidate active component of SYD, but also a new insights into mechanism of SYD in the treatment of CIM.

Keywords: Shengyu decoction, SYD, myelosuppression, network pharmacology, molecular docking, active components, mechanism