How Can Synergism of Traditional Medicines Benefit from Network Pharmacology?

Abstract

Many prescriptions of traditional medicines (TMs), whose efficacy has been tested in clinical practice, have great therapeutic value and represent an excellent resource for drug discovery. Research into single compounds of TMs, such as artemisinin from Artemisia annua L., has achieved great success; however, it has become evident that a TM prescription (which frequently contains various herbs or other components) has a synergistic effect in effecting a cure or reducing toxicity. Network pharmacology targets biological networks and analyzes the links among drugs, targets, and diseases in those networks. Comprehensive, systematic research into network pharmacology is consistent with the perspective of holisticity, which is a main characteristic of many TMs. By means of network pharmacology, research has demonstrated that many a TM show a synergistic effect by acting at different levels on multiple targets and pathways. This approach effectively bridges the gap between modern medicine and TM, and it greatly facilitates studies into the synergistic actions of TMs. There are different kinds of synergistic effects with TMs, such as synergy among herbs, effective parts, and pure compounds; however, for various reasons, new drug discovery should at present focus on synergy among pure compounds.

Deciphering the Pharmacological Mechanisms of Taohe-Chengqi Decoction Extract Against Renal Fibrosis Through Integrating Network Pharmacology and Experimental Validation In Vitro and In Vivo

“…With the rapid development of bioinformatics, network pharmacology has emerged as a powerful tool to explore TCM (Cao et al, 2018;Yu et al, 2018). Based on system-biology, multi-directional pharmacology, and highthroughput analysis, network pharmacology can thoroughly explain the complicated relationship between drugs and diseases by constructing biological network and network visualization analysis of the potential active ingredients, hub targets, signaling pathways and diseases (Yuan et al, 2017;Ning et al, 2018;Huang et al, 2019). Therefore, network pharmacology can effectively explore the multi-components, multi-targets, and multi-pathways of TCM.…”

Ginkgolic acid inhibits the growth of renal cell carcinoma cells via inactivation of the EGFR signaling pathway

“…Therefore, it is difficult to clarify the antitumor mechanism of GA in RCC. Network pharmacology provides a strategy to investigate complex mechanisms of drug action and to identify potential drug targets (28). In a network pharmacology system, therapy response can be taken into account based on the robustness of complex disease networks in dealing with node attacks (node linking degree) due to inherent diversity and redundant compensation signaling pathways (12,19).…”

Identifying Synergistic Mechanisms of Multiple Ingredients in Shuangbai Tablets against Proteinuria by Virtual Screening and a Network Pharmacology Approach

“…Network pharmacology is a mechanism research method for TCM, based on the characteristics of the comprehensive regulation of "multi-ingredient, multitarget, and multipathway" [59][60][61][62]. In this study, synergistic pharmacological mechanisms of SBT against proteinuria were identified through 3 major active ingredients (beta-sitosterol, quercetin, and berberine), 48 candidate targets including 3 key targets and 3 pathways including HIF-1 In our study, beta-sitosterol contained in 9 herbs (HMM and PRA), quercetin contained in HMM and PPL, and berberine contained in ABR acted on 15, 11, and 11 candidate targets against proteinuria, respectively.…”