【原创】基于网络药理学发现中药分子机制的在线分析工具BATMAN-tcm

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), with a history of thousands of years of clinical practice, is gaining more and more attention and application worldwide. And TCM-based new drug development, especially for the treatment of complex diseases is promising. However, owing to the TCM’s diverse ingredients and their complex interaction with human body, it is still quite difficult to uncover its molecular mechanism, which greatly hinders the TCM modernization and internationalization.

国内科学家开发了首个中药分子作用机制的网络药理学在线分析工具BATMAN-TCM (a Bioinformatics Analysis Tool of Molecular mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicine)。

BATMAN-TCM的主要功能包括：1、中药组成成分的靶标预测；2、潜在靶标的功能分析；3、成分-靶标-通路/疾病关联网络的可视化；4、中药不同组分的比较分析。

Its main functions include ：

 1) TCM ingredients’ target prediction; 

2) functional analyses of targets including biological pathway, Gene Ontology functional term and disease enrichment analyses;

 3) the visualization of ingredient-target-pathway/disease association network and KEGG biological pathway with highlighted targets; 

4) comparison analysis of multiple TCMs.

图1 BATMAN-TCM的分析流程

该团队还将BATMAN-TCM应用到芪参益气滴丸的机制研究中，发现该药通过作用于血管紧张素系统来发挥心脏保护的作用。

Finally, they applied BATMAN-TCM to Qishen Yiqi dripping Pill (QSYQ) and combined with subsequent experimental validation to reveal the functions of renin-angiotensin system responsible for QSYQ’s cardioprotective effects for the first time. 

图2 芪参益气滴丸的实验验证结果

BATMAN-TCM将促进对中药“多成分、多靶标、多通路”的联合治疗机制的理解，为后续的实验验证提供线索。

BATMAN-TCM will contribute to the understanding of the “multi-component, multi-target and multi-pathway” combinational therapeutic mechanism of TCM, and provide valuable clues for subsequent experimental validation, accelerating the elucidation of TCM’s molecular mechanism.

BATMAN-TCM is available at http://bionet./batman-tcm.

Reference: Liu Z, Guo F, Wang Y, et al. BATMAN-TCM: a Bioinformatics Analysis Tool for Molecular mechANism of Traditional Chinese Medicine[J]. Scientific reports, 2016, 6.

供稿：中国中医科学院 郭非非 博士     

编辑：生信圈

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