Isorhamnetin inhibits progression of ovarian cancer by targeting ESR1.

Background: Although reports suggest Chinese herbal medicine treatment of ovarian cancer (OC) has a good effect, the role of isorhamnetin (ISO), a flavonol aglycone with immune, anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular protective effects, as well as an anticancer effect, in OC remains unclear. Network pharmacology was used to explore this and , and to identify relevant targets.

Methods: The common targets of ISO in the treatment of OC were screened by constructing drug targets and disease gene databases for Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses. The protein-protein interaction network was constructed by STRING. Overlapping targets were further analyzed using the online tool UALCAN to analyze the correlation between gene expression and patient survival and prognosis. The effect of ISO on OC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion was assessed and , and the function of the estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1) in the development of OC was examined by overexpressing and knocking down expression.

Results: Through network pharmacology analysis, 25 target genes related to ISO-OC were screened out. The overall survival rate of OC patients only significantly correlated with high expression of among 13 highly expressed overlapping genes. ISO significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of OC cells and inhibited tumor growth . Overexpression of significantly promoted the proliferation, migration and invasion of OC cells, whereas knockdown of showed the opposite result. In addition, overexpression of significantly reversed the inhibitory effect of ISO on the proliferation, migration and invasion of OC cells.

Conclusions: We confirmed that ISO inhibits OC cell proliferation, migration and invasion by targeting expression, which provides a theoretical basis for further pharmacological research.