Reproductive Medical Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, People's Republic of China.
Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Reproductive Health Research, School of Medicine, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, People's Republic of China.
Biol Reprod. 2019 Oct 25;101(4):695-703. doi: 10.1093/biolre/ioz141.
Dingkun Pill (DK) is one of the representative traditional Chinese medicines, which has been used in the treatment of gynecological diseases for hundreds of years. Accumulative observations and evidence have shown the beneficial effects of DK, including enhancing the function of hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis. However, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. In this study, the effects of DK on uterine receptivity and implantation were explored by a series of studies with different mouse models. The results showed that DK can advance the time of implantation by influencing the expression of estrogen target genes to facilitate embryo implantation. DK was efficient to activate embryo implantation at the presence of suboptimal estrogen in delayed implantation mouse model. Our further study revealed that the improvement of DK on receptivity establishment is attributed to the differential regulation of DK on implantation-associated genes. This study provides previously unappreciated molecular mechanism of DK in embryo implantation and benefits the potential clinical application of DK in human reproduction improvement.
定坤丹是一种具有代表性的中药，数百年来一直用于治疗妇科疾病。累积的观察和证据表明，DK 具有有益的作用，包括增强下丘脑-垂体-卵巢轴的功能。然而，其潜在的机制仍不清楚。在这项研究中，通过一系列不同的小鼠模型研究，探讨了 DK 对子宫容受性和着床的影响。结果表明，DK 通过影响雌激素靶基因的表达来促进胚胎着床，从而提前着床时间。在延迟着床的小鼠模型中，DK 在雌激素不足的情况下，能有效地激活胚胎着床。我们的进一步研究表明，DK 对容受性建立的改善归因于其对着床相关基因的差异调节。这项研究提供了 DK 在胚胎着床方面的分子机制，为其在人类生殖改善中的潜在临床应用提供了帮助。
