Chapter 4 - Network Pharmacology in the Study of TCM Formulae

Abstract

To target complex, multifactorial diseases more effectively, a trend has emerged toward the use of multitarget drug development based on network biology as well as an increasing interest in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) that applies a more holistic philosophy to the treatment to disease. Thousands of years of clinical practice in TCM has accumulated a considerable number of medicinal formulae that exhibit reliable in vivo efficacy and safety. However, for most of these agents, the molecular mechanisms responsible for their therapeutic effectiveness remain unclear. The development of network-based systems biology has provided considerable support for the understanding of the holistic, complementary, and synergic essence of TCM in the context of molecular networks. This chapter introduces available sources and methods that can be utilized for the network-based study of TCM pharmacology, proposes a workflow for network-based TCM pharmacology research, and presents two case studies where the application of these methods have helped to clarify the mode of action of TCM formulae.