Rongrong Zhang,1,* Wenjun Xu,1,* Hongquan Wei,1,* Boshi Li,1 Yaoxing Wang,1 Xueqing He,1 Jun Cao,1 Xinyu He,1 Mingxiang Xu,1,2 Wenjie Lu,1 Youzhi Xu1 

1College of Basic Medicine, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230032, People’s Republic of China; 2Center for Scientific Research, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230032, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Youzhi Xu; Wenjie Lu, Email xuyouzhi@ahmu.edu.cn; wenjie63136@163.com

Purpose: Currently, there is still no clear treatment for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). YJKL has better therapeutic effects and lower toxic side effects for PCOS type infertility. This study aims to clarify the potential mechanism of YJKL Decoction in the treatment of PCOS based on network pharmacology and experiments verification.
Patients and Methods: Network pharmacology and experimental validation approach were used to investigate the bioactive ingredients, critical targets and potential mechanisms of YJKL Decoction against PCOS. Firstly, we use network pharmacology methods to collect core targets, and then validate their effects on diseases through experiments.
Results: Five core targets were screened, Threonine kinase 1 (AKT1), Cellular tumor antigen p53 (TP53), Tumor necrosis factor (TNF), Albumin (ALB) and Vascular endothelial growthfactor A (VEGFA). KEGG analysis showed that YJKL treatment for PCOS mainly include AGE-RAGE signaling pathway in diabetic complications, TNF signaling pathway and HIF-1 signaling pathway. The molecular docking results showed that compounds have higher affinity with targets. Finally, experimental results had shown that YJKL Decoction had an better therapeutic effects in the treatment of PCOS.
Conclusion: Based on a systematic network pharmacology approach and experimental verification, our results comprehensively illustrated the active ingredients, potential targets, and molecular mechanism of YJKL for application to PCOS and helps to illustrate mechanism of action on a comprehensive level.

Keywords: traditional Chinese Medicine, YJKL, polycystic ovary syndrome, PCOS, molecular docking, experimental validation