To Unveil the Molecular Mechanisms of Qi and Blood through Systems Biology-Based Investigation into Si-Jun-Zi-Tang and Si-Wu-Tang formulae.

Jing Sun,Li Zhang,Yongsheng Fan,Kun Zhang,Zhijun Xie,Liping Wu,Yujun He

doi:10.1038/srep34328

Jing Sun, Li Zhang + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/srep34328

Copy DOI

Abstract

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is increasingly getting clinical application worldwide. But its theory like QI-Blood is still abstract. Actually, Qi deficiency and blood deficiency, which were treated by Si-Jun-Zi-Tang (SJZT) and Si-Wu-Tang (SWT) respectively, have characteristic clinical manifestations. Here, we analyzed targets of the ingredients in SJZT and SWT to unveil potential biologic mechanisms between Qi deficiency and blood deficiency through biomedical approaches. First, ingredients in SWT and SJZT were retrieved from TCMID database. The genes targeted by these ingredients were chosen from STITCH. After enrichment analysis by Gene Ontology (GO) and DAVID, enriched GO terms with p-value less than 0.01 were collected and interpreted through DAVID and KEGG. Then a visualized network was constructed with ClueGO. Finally, a total of 243 genes targeted by 195 ingredients of SWT formula and 209 genes targeted by 61 ingredients of SJZT were obtained. Six metabolism pathways and two environmental information processing pathways enriched by targets were correlated with 2 or more herbs in SWT and SJZT formula, respectively.

Highlights

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), being an effective treatment system, is increasingly getting clinical application worldwide
In trying to unveil the different potential biologic mechanisms between Qi deficiency and blood deficiency through biomedical approaches, we chose SJZT and SWT, which have been used in China and other Asian countries for about 1,000 years to effectively rectify Qi deficiency and blood deficiency, respectively
As shown in Retrieving from TCMID, we obtained 152 genes targeted by 162 ingredients of Radix Angelicae Sinensis, 107 genes targeted by 28 ingredients of Ligusticum chuanxiong, 21 genes targeted by three ingredients of Rehmannia glutinosa, 42 genes targeted by eight ingredients of Paeonia albiflora (Fig. 2A), and 156 genes targeted by 37 ingredients of Panax ginseng, nine genes targeted by two ingredients of Atractylodes macrocephala, nine genes targeted by one ingredients of Poria cocos and 62 genes targeted by 22 ingredients of Radix Glycyrrhizae Preparata (Fig. 2B)

Summary

Introduction

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), being an effective treatment system, is increasingly getting clinical application worldwide. Based on primary biomolecular databases, e.g. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes ( KEGG, http://www.kegg.jp)[3], HPRD4, PDB5, TTD6, OMIM7, Drug-Bank[8], STITCH9 and ChEMBL10, a lot of TCM-related databases have been developed, such as TCMID11, HIT12, TCM Database@Taiwan[13], TCMGeneDIT14, TCM-ID15, TCMSP16 and CHMIS-C17. These TCM-related databases complement each other to provide information on complex interactions of TCM-active ingredient-gene-disease[2]. 17,521 related targets, which facilitates the study of interactions between formula, ingredient, gene and disease to uncover the molecular biological mechanisms of TCM.

Methods

Results

Conclusion