A chemical family-based strategy for uncovering hidden bioactive molecules and multicomponent interactions in herbal medicines

Sci Rep. 2016 Mar 30:6:23840. doi: 10.1038/srep23840.

Abstract

Two concepts involving natural products were proposed and demonstrated in this paper. (1) Natural product libraries (e.g. herbal extract) are not perfect for bioactivity screening because of the vast complexity of compound compositions, and thus a library reconstruction procedure is necessary before screening. (2) The traditional mode of "screening single compound" could be improved to "screening single compound, drug combination and multicomponent interaction" due to the fact that herbal medicines work by integrative effects of multi-components rather than single effective constituents. Based on the two concepts, we established a novel strategy aiming to make screening easier and deeper. Using thrombin as the model enzyme, we firstly uncovered the minor lead compounds, potential drug combinations and multicomponent interactions in an herbal medicine of Dan-Qi pair, showing a significant advantage over previous methods. This strategy was expected to be a new and promising mode for investigation of herbal medicines.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antithrombins / chemistry
  • Antithrombins / isolation & purification
  • Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid
  • Drug Discovery
  • Drugs, Chinese Herbal / chemistry*
  • Drugs, Chinese Herbal / isolation & purification
  • Herbal Medicine
  • Panax notoginseng / chemistry
  • Plants, Medicinal / chemistry
  • Salvia miltiorrhiza / chemistry
  • Small Molecule Libraries

Substances

  • Antithrombins
  • Drugs, Chinese Herbal
  • Small Molecule Libraries