Mechanism of Shenghua decoction in the treatment of primary dysmenorrhea based on network pharmacology and molecular docking analysis technology

Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) is one of the common gynaecological disorders, which significantly affects the physical and mental health of women of reproductive age. Shenghua Decoction (SHD) is a classic formula for treating gynaecological disorders. However, the exact mechanism remains unclear, and there is limited research available on this topic. This study investigated the mechanism of SHD in the treatment of PD using network pharmacology and molecular docking techniques. The active ingredients of SHD were obtained from the Radix Angelicae sinensis, Rhizoma chuanxiong, Semen persicae, Radix Glycyrrhizae and Rhizoma zingiberis preparata of blood components for previous literature. Target prediction was performed by SwissTargetPrediction database, and PD-related disease targets were searched in Drugbank, Gene Cards, TTD and DisGeNET database. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using the STRING database and analyzed by Cytoscape 3.10.0 softwore. Additionally, the target genes were subjected to biological enrichment analysis in the Metascape database, including gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis. With the assistance of AutoDockVina and PyMOL software, a validation of molecular docking results and a visualization of the results were performed. This study identified 26 retained active ingredients of SHD, 484 drug targets, 81 of which were related to PD. GO enrichment analysis mainly involved 1173 biological processes such as response to hormone and positive regulation of cell migration. KEGG enrichment analysis mainly involved 141 pathways such as Steroid hormone biosynthesis, TNF and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. Molecular docking showed that the core active ingredients of SHD, including liquiritigenin, ferulic acid and senkyunolide I, had strong binding abilities with core targets such as PTGS2 and AKT1. SHD can play a role in the treatment of PD through multi-component, multi-target hormone regulation, anti-inflammatory and analgesic pharmacological effects, which provide reference for subsequent research.