Challenges and Perspectives in Target Identification and Mechanism Illustration for Chinese Medicine / 中国结合医学杂志

Chinese medicine (CM) is an important resource for human life understanding and discovery of drugs. However, due to the unclear pharmacological mechanism caused by unclear target, research and international promotion of many active components have made little progress in the past decades of years. CM is mainly composed of multi-ingredients with multi-targets. The identification of targets of multiple active components and the weight analysis of multiple targets in a specific pathological environment, that is, the determination of the most important target is the main obstacle to the mechanism clarification and thus hinders its internationalization. In this review, the main approach to target identification and network pharmacology were summarized. And BIBm (Bayesian inference modeling), a powerful method for drug target identification and key pathway determination was introduced. We aim to provide a new scientific basis and ideas for the development and international promotion of new drugs based on CM.

Analysis of acupoint-symptom relationship in CHENG Dan-an's Note About Treatise on Cold-Attack based on complex network / 中国针灸

Acupoint-symptom relationship in CHENG Dan-an's Note About Treatise on Cold-Attack was analyzed based on complex network, acupoint names and indications were extracted from the book, which provided ideas and methods for promoting the modernization of acupuncture and moxibustion by using complex network technology. A total of 112 acupoints in 201 acupuncture prescriptions were included, and the total frequency of acupoints was 880 times, forming 42 034 acupoint pairs. In terms of network indexes, compared with the complex network of comprehensive acupuncture books, such as Meridian and Acupoint Science, Zhenjiu Dacheng, Acupuncture A and B Meridians formed based on the same mathematical method, the complex network model for CHENG Dan-an's Note About Treatise on Cold-Attack shows more typical small world effect, which is characterized by higher network density (6.762) and shorter average path length (1.064). This phenomenon may be related to the tongue and pulse which added the link between acupoints. For the node indexes, the analysis of topological indexes such as Page Rank shows that acupoints represented by Dazhui (GV 14) has higher compatibility value in the treatment of exogenous diseases, which further demonstrates the clinical value of eigenvector centrality in guiding intelligent compatibility of points.