Prediction of herbal multi-component drug effect based on multi-target analysis

Abstract

Traditional Chinese medicines are regarded as promising source for drug development, since they are relatively safe and their therapeutic effect are previously known, thanks to accumulated trial experiences for over-thousand years. However, its integrated mechanism of action in multi-component level is still unknown.In this research, we developed a system that predict the effect of the multicomponent drug based on multi-target analysis of molecular information. We have integrated biological databases (KEGG, ChEMBL) to obtain drug-related pathways. Next, pathway entities were divided into more specifically defined smaller sub-pathway named product oriented sub-pathway (PSP). From PSP-linked to metabolite sets, drug-affected terms in physiological level were obtained through co-occurrence analysis in PubMed.We have performed a case study for the complex herbal drugs composed of Corydalis tuber and Pharbitis seed. Resulted physiological function terms showed significant similarity with previously known functions of the TCM ingredients.