Traditional Chinese medicine（TCM） holds a holistic theory, and specializes in balancing disordered human body using numerous natural products, particularly Chinese herbal formulae. TCM has certain treatment advantages for patients suffering from various complex diseases. However, due to the complex nature of TCM, it remains difficult to unveil such holistic medicine by the current reductionism research strategies, which treat both herbal ingredients and targets in isolation. Recently, an emerging network pharmacology approach has been introduced to tackle this bottleneck problem. A TCM-derived novel therapeutic concept, ＂network target＂, which is different from the Western medicine＇s ＂onetarget＂ concept, has been proposed from China. The network target strategy is able to illustrate the complex interactions among the biological systems, drugs, and complex diseases from a network perspective, and thus provides an innovative approach to access ancient remedies in a precision manner and at a systematic level, which also highlights TCM＇s potential in current medical systems.
Cancer is recognized as a leading cause of deaths nowadays,accounting for 10 million annual deaths worldwide and resulting in heavy health and economic burdens[1].Reducing cancer incidence through precision prevention is thus of great scientific and clinical value.Gastric cancer(GC)is one of the most common cancers in China.Pathologically,the onset of GC,especially the intestinal-type ones,would usually suffer a series of premalignant lesions,including atrophic gastritis,intestinal metaplasia,and low-grade dysplasia(LGD),which is known as the process of gastritis-induced tumorigenesis(GIGT)[2].Epidemiological studies have shown that GIGT has exhibited the characteristics of longterm and low-probability,that is,only a small number of gastritis patients would develop into GC after a long period.Therefore,it has become the key challenge for GC precision prevention that how to uncover the biological mechanism underlying GIGT,followed by accurately identifying the critical time point at which effective diagnosis and treatment strategies could be developed to prevent GC.Of note,this is also a common challenge for the precision prevention of other cancer types,such as liver and colon cancers.
Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)is a precious treasure of the Chinese nation and has unique advantages in the prevention and treatment of diseases.The holistic view of TCM coincides with the new generation of medical research paradigm characterized by network and system.TCM gave birth to a new method featuring holistic and systematic"network target",a core theory and method of network pharmacology.TCM is also an important research object of network pharmacology.TCM network pharmacology,which aims to understand the network-based biological basis of complex diseases,TCM syndromes and herb treatments,plays a critical role in the origin and development process of network pharmacology.This review introduces new progresses of TCM network pharmacology in recent years,including predicting herb targets,understanding biological foundation of diseases and syndromes,network regulation mechanisms of herbal formulae,and identifying disease and syndrome biomarkers based on biological network.These studies show a trend of combining computational,experimental and clinical approaches,which is a promising direction of TCM network pharmacology research in the future.Considering that TCM network pharmacology is still a young research field,it is necessary to further standardize the research process and evaluation indicators to promote its healthy development.
The development of gastritis is associated with an increased risk of gastric cancer. Current invasive gastritis diagnostic methods are not suitable for monitoring progressIn this work based on 78 gastritis patients and 50 healthy individuals, we observed that the variation of tongue-coating microbiota was associated with the occurrenee and development of gastritis. Twenty-one microbial species were identified for differentiating tongue-coating microbiomes of gastritis and healthy individuals. Pathways such as microbial metabolism in diverse environments, biosynthesis of antibiotics and bacterial chemotaxis were up-regulated in gastritis patients. The abundance of Campylobacter concisus was found associated with the gastric precancerous cascade. Furthermore, Campylobacter concisus could be detected in tongue coating and gastric fluid in a validation cohort containing 38 gastritis patients. These observations provided biological evidence of tongue diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine, and indicated that tongue-coating microbiome could be a potential non-invasive biomarker, which might be suitable for long-term monitoring of gastritis.
Jiaxing CuiHongfei CuiMingran YangShiyu DuJunfeng LiYingxue LiLiyang LiuXuegong ZhangShao Li
Traditional Chinese Medicine（TCM）, a crucial component of the current medical system, has been extensively used in clinical practice due to its valuable therapeutic efficacy, and its potentials as an important source of new pharmacophores. TCM is characterized by holistic theory, which emphasizes maintaining the balance of the patient＇s whole body using herbal formulae（fangji in Chinese） composed of mixtures of herbs with multiple bioactive ingredients. Because of the complex nature of these formulae, it is necessary to develop systematic methods to identify their bioactive ingredients and to clarify their mechanisms of action. With the rapid progress in bioinformatics, systems biology, and polypharmacology, ＂network pharmacology＂, which shifts the ＂one target, one drug＂ paradigm to the ＂network target, multi-component＂ strategy, has attracted the attention because it can not only reveal the underlying complex interactions between a herbal formula and cellular proteins but detect the influence of their interactions on the function and behavior of the system. Growing evidence shows that the network pharmacology strategy can be a powerful approach to modern research on TCM. The present paper focuses on the basis of network pharmacology and the recent progress in its methodology, illustrates its utility in screening bioactive ingredients and elucidating the mechanisms of action of TCM herbal formulae, analyzes its limitations and problems, and discusses its development direction and application prospects.
