REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1628602
This article is part of the Research TopicPharmacological Mechanisms of Drugs Affecting Bone Formation and Bone Resorption Volume IIView all 21 articles
Progress in the application of Epimedium and its major bioactive components in the treatment of Orthopedic diseases
Provisionally accepted
- 1Affiliated Hospital of Shaoxing University, Shaoxing, China
- 2Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China
- 3Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital of Zhuji, Zhuji, China
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Epimedium brevicornu(Yin Yang Huo), a widely used traditional Chinese medicinal ingredient, has garnered significant attention for its role in treating orthopedic diseases such as osteoporosis. Our work through network pharmacology and bioinformatics analysis, we identified that out of 27 major active components in Epimedium brevicornu, 8 key components have therapeutic effects on 11 types of diseases related to orthopedic conditions. The disease-target association analysis indicated that Osteoarthritis, Osteoporosis, Muscle Spasm and Myopathy have relatively clear targets for disease treatment. The KEGG enrichment analysis results indicate that the signaling pathway of Epimedium treatment in Osteoarthritis may be closely related to the Lipid and atherosclerosis pathway, PPAR signaling pathway and Arachidonic acid metabolism. Epimedium may treat osteoporosis with Nitrogen metabolism, GABAergic synapse, and Pathways in cancer. Epimedium may affect muscle spasticity through Neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, Serotonergic synapse and Cholinergic synapse closely related to nervous system function; Additionally, our analysis suggests that Epimedium may treat myopathy through Nitrogen metabolism and GABAergic synapse pathways. These studies have not only provided a molecular mechanism-based explanation for the pharmacological effects of Epimedium, but also laid a theoretical foundation for the development of Epimedium-based precision therapeutic regimens.
Keywords: Epimedium, Orthopedic diseases, target, Enrichment analysis, Pathway
Received: 14 May 2025; Accepted: 23 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tong, Chen, Jiang, Ye, Ma, Ye and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Angzhi Ye, Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital of Zhuji, Zhuji, China
Jian Xu, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.