Abstract
In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), diagnosis and prescriptions are based on the signs and symptoms which are recognized as ZHENG. The cornerstone of TCM is to differentially treat one ZHENG from others, which is also known as syndrome differentiation, and this relies on the gathering of clinical information through inspection, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, and palpation. However, the biomolecular basis of the ZHENG remains unclear. In this study, the expressions of 384 cancer-related miRNAs in salivary supernatant of patients with pancreatic cancer were assessed by miRNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) array, and the different expression patterns of miRNA in three different groups of ZHENG were studied with use of real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR). Some miRNAs were found to be specifically expressed in some ZHENGs, for instance, miR-17, miR-21, and miR-181b in Shi-Re ZHENG and miR-196a in Pi-Xu ZHENG. This indicates that these miRNAs may play important roles in different ZHENG condition. Therefore, this study to some extent revealed the molecular basis of TCM ZHENG in pancreatic cancer.
Highlights
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), with a history of more than 3,000 years, emphasizes the comprehensive analysis of clinical information collected through four combined diagnostic methods: observation, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, and palpation
This study focused on the specific expression of miRNA in the salivary supernatant in patients with pancreatic cancer, and the correlation between ZHENG and microRNA expression in pancreatic cancer was investigated
Custom qRT-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to analyze the relative concentrations of the 19 candidate miRNAs in the saliva supernatant of the 30 patients and the 32 healthy volunteers (Figure 1)
Summary
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), with a history of more than 3,000 years, emphasizes the comprehensive analysis of clinical information collected through four combined diagnostic methods: observation, auscultation and olfaction, inquiry, and palpation. ZHENG is the cornerstone in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) theories. Many studies showed that TCM has certain advantages in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, while in most such studies it is difficult to interpret the advantages due to the lack of evidence-based medicine design. In TCM theory, the pathogenesis of pancreatic carcinoma may be the accumulation of dampness and heat, or the accumulation of dampness, heat, and toxicity. The related literature review indicated that Shi-Re, Pi-Xu, and Xue-Yu (dampness-heat, spleen-deficiency, and blood-stasis, resp.) are the top three types of TCM ZHENG in pancreatic cancer [1]. In this work, the expressions of some miRNAs related to pancreatic cancer (PC) under different ZHENG conditions were studied, and this work is expected to partially explore the molecular mechanism of TCM ZHENG in pancreatic cancer
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