Abstract
A traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula network including 362 TCM formulas was built by using complex network methodologies. The properties of this network were analyzed including network diameter, average distance, clustering coefficient, and average degree. Meanwhile, we built a TCM chemical space and a TCM metabolism room under the theory of chemical space. The properties of chemical space and metabolism room were calculated and analyzed. The properties of the medicine pairs in “eighteen antagonisms and nineteen mutual inhibitors,” an ancient rule for TCM incompatibility, were studied based on the TCM formula network, chemical space, and metabolism room. The results showed that the properties of these incompatible medicine pairs are different from those of the other TCM based on the analysis of the TCM formula network, chemical space, and metabolism room. The lines of evidence derived from our work demonstrated that the ancient rule of TCM incompatibility, “eighteen antagonisms and nineteen mutual inhibitors,” is probably scientifically based.
Highlights
Chinese formula is the most common use form of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in clinical treatment
The results show that average chemical spatial distance between medicine pairs of “Eighteen antagonisms and nineteen mutual inhibitions” is 2.066, which is much larger than the average distance of all TCM, 1.641
The TCM formula network was built by using complex network methodologies
Summary
Chinese formula is the most common use form of TCM in clinical treatment. The theory of TCM incompatibility is the fundamental principle that should be followed for correct clinical medication, which has a direct relationship with effectiveness and safety of TCM formulas. The complex network method is frequently used in studying the complex systems in recent years [2, 3], in biological researches. Thanks to the complex network technologies, to some extent, Systems Biology has been developed from academic theory to practical application [4,5,6,7]. Systems Biology has been introduced into the TCM researches. Li et al carried out a series of studies centering on TCM Syndrome theory and Chinese herbal property with complex network technology in Systems Biology and made their own achievements [8,9,10,11,12,13]
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