Understand the Hierarchy of Chinese Herbal Formula

Jun Chen Zuo Shi in Qi Shen Yi Qi Formula

BACKGROUND:

The role of "Jun-Chen-Zuo-Shi" (also known as "sovereign-minister-assistant-courier") component herbs of Chinese medicine is not fully understood. This study aims to test the "Jun-Chen-Zuo-Shi" rule with the QiShenYiQi formula (QSYQ) on treating acute myocardial ischemia (AMI) by a network pharmacology approach.

METHODS:

An Acute Myocardial Ischemia (AMI) specific Organism Disturbed Network (AMI-ODN), was constructed by integrating data of disease-associated genes, protein-protein interaction and microarray experiments. A network-based index, Network Recovery Index for Organism Disturbed Network (NRI-ODN), was developed to measure the therapeutic efficacy of QSYQ and its ingredients, i.e., the ability to recover disturbed AMI network model back to normal state.

RESULTS:

The whole formula of QSYQ got a NRI-ODN score of 864.48, which outperformed all individual herbs. Additionally, the primary component herbs, Radix Astragalus membranaceus and Radix Salvia miltiorrrhiza showed NRI-DON score of 680.27 and 734.31 respectively, which meant a better performance to recover disturbed AMI network than the supplementary component herbs, Panax notoginseng and Dalbergia sissoo did (545.76 and 584.88, respectively).

CONCLUSION:

AMI-ODN model and NRI-ODN identified the possible roles of "Jun-Chen-Zuo-Shi" component herbs of QSYQ in treating AMI at molecular network and pathway level.

Source: Wu L, Wang Y, Li Z, Zhang B, Cheng Y, Fan X. Identifying roles of "Jun-Chen-Zuo-Shi" component herbs of QiShenYiQi formula in treating acute myocardial ischemia by network pharmacology. Chin Med. 2014 Sep 16;9:24.