Network Toxicology and Molecular Docking Reveal the Toxicological Mechanisms of DEHP in Bone Diseases

Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), a widely employed exogenous plasticizer, has become pervasive in the environment and living organisms due to its extensive use in food packaging, medical devices, and daily consumer products, and is established as a typical endocrine-disrupting chemical. Growing evidence indicates a strong association between DEHP exposure and the incidence of chronic bone disorders, including osteoporosis (OP), osteoarthritis (OA), and osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH). However, the molecular mechanisms underlying its pathogenic effects across these diseases remain poorly defined. In this study, we applied an environmental network toxicology approach to integrate predicted protein targets of DEHP with known disease-associated targets of the three bone disorders using multiple databases. Through Venn analysis, protein-protein interaction (PPI) network construction, and Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses, we identified core targets and key signaling pathways. Molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were further employed to validate the binding modes and stability between DEHP and the core targets, thereby elucidating common and distinct mechanisms of DEHP across these bone diseases. A total of 109 overlapping targets of DEHP and the three bone diseases were identified, among which 7 core targets-AKT1, SRC, ESR1, CASP3, MMP9, BCL2, and BCL2L1-were common to all three disorders. These are implicated in critical biological processes such as apoptosis regulation, inflammation, extracellular matrix degradation, and estrogen signaling. KEGG enrichment analysis revealed significant involvement of the PI3K-Akt, MAPK, Ras, TNF, and estrogen signaling pathways across all three diseases. Molecular docking and MD simulations confirmed stable binding of DEHP to key targets including AKT1, ESR1, and MMP9, supporting its potential to disrupt bone metabolic homeostasis via multi-target and multi-pathway mechanisms. Further analysis indicated that DEHP exerts both shared and disease-specific effects: it disrupts osteoblast/osteoclast balance in OP, amplifies inflammatory responses and matrix degradation in OA, and contributes to impaired angiogenesis and osteocyte necrosis in ONFH. This study systematically reveals how DEHP disrupts bone homeostasis through a multi-target and multi-pathway network, constructing a cross-disease osteotoxicity framework. It is the first to delineate the common and distinct molecular mechanisms of DEHP in OP, OA, and ONFH. Although these insights are derived from computational models and require further experimental validation, they provide a novel theoretical basis for combined intervention strategies targeting multiple bone diseases and for environmental health risk assessment.