Systems biology approaches in the study of Chinese herbal formulae
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Systems biology approaches in the study of Chinese herbal formulae Fei‑Fei Cai, Wen‑Jun Zhou, Rong Wu and Shi‑Bing Su*
Abstract Systems biology is an academic field that attempts to integrate different levels of information to understand how bio‑ logical systems function. It is the study of the composition of all components of a biological system and their interac‑ tions under specific conditions. The core of systems biology is holistic and systematic research, which is different from the manner of thinking and research of all other branches of biology to date. Chinese herbal formulae (CHF) are the main form of Chinese medicine and are composed of single Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) with pharmacologi‑ cal and pharmacodynamic compatibility. When single CHMs are combined into CHF, the result is different from the original effect of a single drug and can be better adapted to more diseases with complex symptoms. CHF represent a complex system with multiple components, targets and effects. Therefore, the use of systems biology is conducive to revealing the complex characteristics of CHF. With the rapid development of omics technologies, systems biology has been widely and increasingly applied to the study of the basis of the pharmacological substances, action targets and mechanisms of CHF. To meet the challenges of multiomics synthesis-intensive studies and system dynamics research in CHF, this paper reviews the common techniques of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and metagenomics and their applications in research on CHF. Keywords: Systems biology, Chinese herbal formulae, Chinese medicine, Omics Introduction Chinese herbal formulae (CHF) are the main forms of prescription for the clinical application of Chinese medicine (CM) and embody the holistic philosophy of CM and the characteristics of treatment according to syndrome differentiation. The complexity of the chemical compositions and the diversity of the prescription compatibility and therapeutic functions of CHF have long presented great difficulties in the research of CM [1]. In contrast to the single compounds of Western medicine, which have specific targets and definite modes of action, CHF contain many types of components. The effects of these chemical components not only are superimposed but also interact with each other through multiple targets, pathways and mechanisms [2, 3]. Slow progress in the research on the pharmacological mechanisms of *Correspondence: [email protected] Research Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine Complexity System, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, China
CHF has hindered their application and popularization throughout the world, thus becoming one of the key scientific problems to be solved in the modernization of CM. Systems biology studies the interactions among different parts of a biological system at the cellular, tissue, organ and biological levels, and it quantitatively describes and predicts biological functions, phenotype
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