ABSTRACT
The pharmacology of Chinese medicine is an academic discipline that studies the interaction between Chinese medicine and organism(including pathogens) by modern science and technology under the guidance of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) theories. However, the pharmacology of Chinese medicine is mainly guided by the theories, techniques, and methods of modern medicine in the development, and TCM theories have been ignored to a certain extent, which does not conform to the action characteristics of Chinese medicine in essence. Since systematic research ideas, strategies, methods, and technologies that conform to the characteristics of TCM have not been established, it is unable to reveal the scientific connotation of TCM in the prevention and treatment of diseases. Therefore, according to the trend of the modern development of TCM and the research status of pharmacology of Chinese medicine, this study put forward the concept of pharmacology of combination of disease and syndrome and expounded the relevant background, content, methods, and significance of this concept. It is expected to improve the standardization of pharmacology of combination of disease and syndrome, guide the safe medication, provide new references for the scientific development of pharmacology of Chinese medicine, and promote the development of the modernization of Chinese medicine.
Subject(s)
Humans , Drugs, Chinese Herbal , Medicine, Chinese Traditional , Social Change , SyndromeABSTRACT
"Kidney essence" is a profound concept in the theory of traditional Chinese medicine. But its biological basis is unknown until now, resulting in the therapeutic effects of traditional Chinese drugs on reinforcing kidney for supplementing essence hard to be evaluated. This study aimed, to explore the potential biological basis and mechanism of traditional Chinese drugs of reinforcing kidney for supplementing essence on diseases related to deficiency of kidney essence through network pharmacology analysis on the intersection of targets of drugs and diseases. The targets for ingredients in Rehmanniae radix praeparata (RRP), Polygoni multiflori radix praeparata (PMRP) and Polygonati rhizome (PR) were gathered from TCMSP and TCMID database. Osteoporosis, Alzheimer's disease, anemia, infertility and oligospermia targets were collected from OMIM and DisGeNET database. Drug-compound-target-disease (DCTD) network was established with Cytoscape 3.6.1 software, then Clue GO and DAVID database was used to acquire the annotation about GO terms and signaling pathways. Natural aging mice, an acknowledged syndrome model of deficiency of kidney essence, and RRP were used to verify the predictive targets by Western blot analysis. All animal experiments were conducted in accordance with the international guidelines and regulations for the care and use of animals. DCTD network showed that the intersection of drugs and diseases included 175 common targets. After topology analysis, 71 key were screened out targets which were associated with GO annotation exhibited that biological processes (including transcription regulation, RNA metabolism regulation, and DNA-dependent transcription regulation), cell composition (including nuclear lumen, organelle lumen, and membrane closure lumen), molecular function (including transcription regulation, transcription factor activity, and enzyme binding), and signaling pathway (including peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1), erythropoietin (EPO) and other signaling pathways. In natural aging mice, the expressions of HIF-1α, growth factor receptor-bound protein 2 (GRB2), MAPK3, signal transducer and activator of transcription 5A (STAT5A), transcription factor AP-1 (JUN) and proto-oncogene c-Fos (FOS) in EPO pathway were significantly decreased. RRP significantly reversed the decrease of the above targets. Above all, these results indicated that the therapeutic effects of traditional Chinese drugs of reinforcing kidney for supplementing essence on deficiency of kidney essence may be related to the regulation of nuclear transcriptional activity and EPO signaling pathway.