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Systems Network Pharmaco-Toxicology in the Study of Herbal Medicines

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Abstract

Analytic “‘omic” techniques and systems biology driven bioinformatics have increasingly been a game changer in the study of herbal drugs, thanks to the simultaneous detection of entire molecular families in a given biological system, and the ability to collect, classify, network, and visualize a large number of analytical data through bioinformatics. The genomics area has been at the vanguard of this evolution. Other “‘omic” techniques, such as proteomics and metabonomics, are providing a fast-growing body of data both on biological targets and on phytocomplexes and their interactions. This has favored a more global view of biological processes, describing how perturbations can influence the steady state of a large number of the components of the system and their relations, changing the system as a whole. It is thus apparent that biological responses induced by phytocomplexes represent the net output of changes in the properties of a very large number of molecules, all acting in an interdependent fashion to form a highly connected network.

“‘Omic” techniques and systems biology are applied in herbal medicine at various levels, and provide novel strategies that can be exploited both for herbal drug research and medical use, in applications ranging from drug quality control to patient stratification. Network pharmaco-toxicology represents one of the most important applications of this new approach. Building up networks of molecular interactions between phytocomplex components and pharmaco-toxicological processes can provide a powerful predictive tool in herbal medicine. There is an increasing number of Web-based systems biology platforms, continuously fed with “'omics” data, providing a view of the complete biological system modulated by a given drug that can be used for predictive pharmacology and toxicology. Systems toxicology promises to be the best context for providing a mechanistic understanding of toxicological effects, thus allowing the prediction of responses to phytochemicals.

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Abbreviations

ADME:

Adsorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion

ADMET:

Adsorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicology

AOP:

Adverse outcome pathway

AST:

Addition and subtraction theory

CMAP:

Connectivity map

DCHD:

Da Chaihu decoction

DILI:

Drug-induced liver injury

FDA:

Food and Drug Administration

HMDB:

Human metabolome database

HMSP:

Herbal medicine systems pharmacology

HS:

UK National Health System

KEGG:

Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes

LBVS:

Ligand-based virtual screening

LINCS:

Library of integrated network-based cellular signatures

MHD:

Ma-huang decoction

MS:

Mass spectrometry

NGS:

Next generation sequencing

NIH:

(United States) National Institutes of Health

NMR:

Nuclear magnetic resonance

PEA:

Probability ensemble approach

PGP:

Personal genome project

PoT:

Pathways of toxicity

PRM:

Parallel reaction monitoring

QSARs:

Quantitative structure-activity relationships

SBVS:

Structure-based virtual screening

SNPs:

Single nucleotide polymorphisms

SRM:

Selected reaction monitoring

TCM:

Traditional Chinese medicine

TCMSP:

Traditional Chinese medicine systems pharmacology database

VS:

Virtual screening

WES:

Whole exome sequencing

XCHD:

Xiao Chaihu decoction

WGS:

Whole genome sequencing

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Roberta Sato at the Library of the Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences of the University of Padova for her technical assistance with database search and bibliography, and Mariagnese Barbera for text revision.

Conflict of Interest

Alessandro Buriani and Stefano Fortinguerra are in charge of the Personalized Medicine service of the Gruppo Data Medica Padova.

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Correspondence to Alessandro Buriani .

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© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Buriani, A., Fortinguerra, S., Carrara, M., Pelkonen, O. (2017). Systems Network Pharmaco-Toxicology in the Study of Herbal Medicines. In: Pelkonen, O., Duez, P., Vuorela, P., Vuorela, H. (eds) Toxicology of Herbal Products. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43806-1_7

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