网络药理学在中药领域的研究进展及面临的挑战

中医药学强调事物本身的统一性、完整性和联系性,是以"整体观念"和"辨证论治"为指导理论,并以"同病异治"和"异病同治"为原则进行临床治疗的一门学科。而网络药理学是从整体上探索药物与疾病的相关性,其整体性、系统性和注重药物与靶点间相互作用的特点与中医药学的基本特点相吻合,是一门从系统层面揭示中药对机体网络调控作用的新兴学科。网络药理学利用计算机模拟和各种数据库筛选药物分子作用靶点,预测其信号通路和作用机制,采用相关软件进行化合物-靶标-通路网络可视化,经过拓扑参数分析筛选关键节点。为新药研发节约了成本经费,可在一定程度上解决传统中药研究中"单一成分-单一靶点-单一途径"的局限性。对网络药理学的研究思维方法、创新点,在国内外中药领域的应用和面临的挑战进行概述,以期完善网络药理学在中医药领域的应用,为中医药学研究提供新方向。

Research progress and challenges of network pharmacology in field of traditional Chinese medicine

Chinese medicine emphasizes the unity, integrity and connection of things itself. It is a subject of clinical treatment based on the theory of "holistic concept" and "dialectical treatment", and the principle of "treating the same disease with different treatments" and "treating different diseases with the same treatment". Network pharmacology was used to explore the correlation between drugs and diseases from the whole, and its integrity, systematicness, and the characteristics of paying attention to drug and target interaction are consistent with the basic characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine, so network pharmacology is a new subject from the system level to reveal the role of traditional Chinese medicine on the body network regulation. Network pharmacology used computer simulations and various databases to screen targets for drug molecules to predict their signaling pathways and the mechanism of action, and the related software was used to visualize the compound-target-pathway network, and the key nodes were screened by topological parameter analysis. It can solve the limitation of "single component-single target point-single pathway" in traditional Chinese medicine research to some extent. The thinking methods, innovation points, international application of traditional Chinese medicine and the challenges were summarized in this paper, in order to improve the application of network pharmacology in the field of traditional Chinese medicine, and provide a new direction for the research of traditional Chinese medicine.