In the 21st century, the public are more informed, mainly via the Internet, about health and medical products and have become more knowledgeable about matters relating to their health conditions and well-being in curi...In the 21st century, the public are more informed, mainly via the Internet, about health and medical products and have become more knowledgeable about matters relating to their health conditions and well-being in curing and preventing illnesses. They often self-medicate themselves with various health products and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines apart from prescribed pharmaceutical drugs (PD). Some of those non-prescribed products may have doubtful quality control and contain harmful additives or unchecked ingredients; thus their usefulness is in doubt. The increasing popularity world-wide of using Chinese medicines (CM) and related OTC functional products has raised concerns over their concomitant use with PD and the consequential adverse effects. In most cases the alleged causes of adverse effects are linked with herbal sources, although the authorised information on the interactions between CM-PD is not plentiful in the literature. There is an urgent need for such a data base. The future professionals in health and medical care should be knowledgeable or aware of what their patients have been taking or given. In actual practice the patients may receive both treatments intentionally or unintentionally, with or without the awareness of the practitioner. In these situations a reliable database for interactions between CM-PD will be extremely useful for consultation when treatment problems appear or during emergency situations. Their combining of medications may be involved with possible outcomes of adverse reactions or beneficial effects. Such a database will be welcomed by both practitioners of herbal medicines and orthodox medicine practitioners in the emerging trend of integrative medicine. The author has been involved in various research projects of basic and clinical aspects in mainly CM among other herbal and PD. Examples will be given largely on those related to these disciplines as illustrations in this overview.展开更多
Objective Traditional Chinese medicines(TCMs) as natural therapeutic agents have been widely used and received great attention over the world.However,the information on them to cause herb-drug interactions mediated ...Objective Traditional Chinese medicines(TCMs) as natural therapeutic agents have been widely used and received great attention over the world.However,the information on them to cause herb-drug interactions mediated by cytochrome P450(CYP) enzymes is limited.The present study aims to evaluate the inhibitory effects of 11 commonly used TCMs,including Nelumbinis Folium,Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma,Ziziphi Spinosae Semen,Chrysanthemi Flos,Lonicera Japonica Flos,Lycii Fructus,Cassiae Semen,Poria,Crataegi Fructus,Schisandrae Chinensis Fructus,and Polygonati Rhizoma,on the five human major CYP isoenzymes 2C19,2D6,3A4,2E1,and 2C9.Methods An in vitro cocktail method was used.Results The aqueous extracts of all tested TCMs were found no significant inhibitory effect,with IC50 values higher than 100 μg/mL while,the ethanolic extracts of some herbs showed more potent inhibition.These herbs include Nelumbinis Folium with IC50 values of 1 2.05 and 61.43 μg/mL on CYP2D6 and CYP2E1,Schisandrae Chinensis Fructus with IC50 values of 64.42 and 47.24 μg/mL on CYP2C1 9and CYP3A4,and Chrysanthemi Flos with IC50 values of 45.25 μg/mL on CYP2C9,respectively.Conclusion Co-administration of these TCMs and their products with conventional medicines should be paid much attention to,and their potential inhibitory effects on CYP enzyme activities need to be further investigated.展开更多
A disease phenotype generally reflects various pathobiological processes that interact in a complex network. The highly interconnected nature of the human protein interaction network(interactome) indicates that, at ...A disease phenotype generally reflects various pathobiological processes that interact in a complex network. The highly interconnected nature of the human protein interaction network(interactome) indicates that, at the molecular level, it is difficult to consider diseases as being independent of one another. Recently, genome-wide molecular measurements, data mining and bioinformatics approaches have provided the means to explore human diseases from a molecular basis. The exploration of diseases and a system of disease relationships based on the integration of genome-wide molecular data with the human interactome could offer a powerful perspective for understanding the molecular architecture of diseases. Recently, subnetwork markers have proven to be more robust and reliable than individual biomarker genes selected based on gene expression profiles alone, and achieve higher accuracy in disease classification. We have applied one of these methodologies to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy(IDCM) data that we have generated using a microarray and identified significant subnetworks associated with the disease. In this paper, we review the recent endeavours in this direction, and summarize the existing methodologies and computational tools for network-based analysis of complex diseases and molecular relationships among apparently different disorders and human disease network. We also discuss the future research trends and topics of this promising field.展开更多
基金the support from the Joint Chair in Traditional Chinese Medicine Program(New South Wales Office of Science Research,The University of Sydney and University of Western Sydney,Australia)
文摘In the 21st century, the public are more informed, mainly via the Internet, about health and medical products and have become more knowledgeable about matters relating to their health conditions and well-being in curing and preventing illnesses. They often self-medicate themselves with various health products and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines apart from prescribed pharmaceutical drugs (PD). Some of those non-prescribed products may have doubtful quality control and contain harmful additives or unchecked ingredients; thus their usefulness is in doubt. The increasing popularity world-wide of using Chinese medicines (CM) and related OTC functional products has raised concerns over their concomitant use with PD and the consequential adverse effects. In most cases the alleged causes of adverse effects are linked with herbal sources, although the authorised information on the interactions between CM-PD is not plentiful in the literature. There is an urgent need for such a data base. The future professionals in health and medical care should be knowledgeable or aware of what their patients have been taking or given. In actual practice the patients may receive both treatments intentionally or unintentionally, with or without the awareness of the practitioner. In these situations a reliable database for interactions between CM-PD will be extremely useful for consultation when treatment problems appear or during emergency situations. Their combining of medications may be involved with possible outcomes of adverse reactions or beneficial effects. Such a database will be welcomed by both practitioners of herbal medicines and orthodox medicine practitioners in the emerging trend of integrative medicine. The author has been involved in various research projects of basic and clinical aspects in mainly CM among other herbal and PD. Examples will be given largely on those related to these disciplines as illustrations in this overview.
基金Ministry of Science and Technology of China(1108,2011DFA32730 and 2012ZX09301002-001)
文摘Objective Traditional Chinese medicines(TCMs) as natural therapeutic agents have been widely used and received great attention over the world.However,the information on them to cause herb-drug interactions mediated by cytochrome P450(CYP) enzymes is limited.The present study aims to evaluate the inhibitory effects of 11 commonly used TCMs,including Nelumbinis Folium,Ginseng Radix et Rhizoma,Ziziphi Spinosae Semen,Chrysanthemi Flos,Lonicera Japonica Flos,Lycii Fructus,Cassiae Semen,Poria,Crataegi Fructus,Schisandrae Chinensis Fructus,and Polygonati Rhizoma,on the five human major CYP isoenzymes 2C19,2D6,3A4,2E1,and 2C9.Methods An in vitro cocktail method was used.Results The aqueous extracts of all tested TCMs were found no significant inhibitory effect,with IC50 values higher than 100 μg/mL while,the ethanolic extracts of some herbs showed more potent inhibition.These herbs include Nelumbinis Folium with IC50 values of 1 2.05 and 61.43 μg/mL on CYP2D6 and CYP2E1,Schisandrae Chinensis Fructus with IC50 values of 64.42 and 47.24 μg/mL on CYP2C1 9and CYP3A4,and Chrysanthemi Flos with IC50 values of 45.25 μg/mL on CYP2C9,respectively.Conclusion Co-administration of these TCMs and their products with conventional medicines should be paid much attention to,and their potential inhibitory effects on CYP enzyme activities need to be further investigated.
基金funded by the National Plan for Science,Technology and Innovation program (NSTIP/KACST, No.11-BIO2072-20 to D.C.)
文摘A disease phenotype generally reflects various pathobiological processes that interact in a complex network. The highly interconnected nature of the human protein interaction network(interactome) indicates that, at the molecular level, it is difficult to consider diseases as being independent of one another. Recently, genome-wide molecular measurements, data mining and bioinformatics approaches have provided the means to explore human diseases from a molecular basis. The exploration of diseases and a system of disease relationships based on the integration of genome-wide molecular data with the human interactome could offer a powerful perspective for understanding the molecular architecture of diseases. Recently, subnetwork markers have proven to be more robust and reliable than individual biomarker genes selected based on gene expression profiles alone, and achieve higher accuracy in disease classification. We have applied one of these methodologies to idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy(IDCM) data that we have generated using a microarray and identified significant subnetworks associated with the disease. In this paper, we review the recent endeavours in this direction, and summarize the existing methodologies and computational tools for network-based analysis of complex diseases and molecular relationships among apparently different disorders and human disease network. We also discuss the future research trends and topics of this promising field.