Relation of "property-response-component" and action mechanism of Yuanhu Zhitong Dropping Pills based on quality marker (Q-Marker) / 中草药

ABSTRACT

The research of effective components of Chinese materia medica (CMM) is one of the key points of modernization of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), is the core of interpreting overall efficacy and mechanism of TCM, and is the important foundation of realizing the safety, efficacy, and quality control of CMM. Previous studies mostly focused on the binary research mode of "component-effect". However, in this paper, the triarchic theory of "property-effect-component" was proposed and the research strategy and mode of exploring the mechanism, effective components, and quality markers (Q-Marker) of TCM were established based on the basic properties of TCM, basic concepts and terms of TCM theory and also related with the core contents of TCM theory including syndrome differentiation and treatment, rules of treatment, method of treatment, compatibility regularity, and drug property. The Yuanhu Zhitong Dropping Pills (YZDP) were taken as an example for demonstration research and corydaline, tetrahydropalmatine, protopine, imperatorin, and isoimperatorin were determined to be the Q-Marker of YZDP.