In silico identification of anti-cancer compounds and plants from traditional Chinese medicine database

Sci Rep. 2016 May 5:6:25462. doi: 10.1038/srep25462.

Abstract

There is a constant demand to develop new, effective, and affordable anti-cancer drugs. The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a valuable and alternative resource for identifying novel anti-cancer agents. In this study, we aim to identify the anti-cancer compounds and plants from the TCM database by using cheminformatics. We first predicted 5278 anti-cancer compounds from TCM database. The top 346 compounds were highly potent active in the 60 cell lines test. Similarity analysis revealed that 75% of the 5278 compounds are highly similar to the approved anti-cancer drugs. Based on the predicted anti-cancer compounds, we identified 57 anti-cancer plants by activity enrichment. The identified plants are widely distributed in 46 genera and 28 families, which broadens the scope of the anti-cancer drug screening. Finally, we constructed a network of predicted anti-cancer plants and approved drugs based on the above results. The network highlighted the supportive role of the predicted plant in the development of anti-cancer drug and suggested different molecular anti-cancer mechanisms of the plants. Our study suggests that the predicted compounds and plants from TCM database offer an attractive starting point and a broader scope to mine for potential anti-cancer agents.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic / chemistry*
  • Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic / classification
  • Computer Simulation
  • Data Mining / statistics & numerical data*
  • Databases, Factual*
  • Drugs, Chinese Herbal / chemistry*
  • Drugs, Chinese Herbal / classification
  • Humans
  • Medicine, Chinese Traditional
  • Neoplasms / drug therapy
  • Plants, Medicinal / chemistry*
  • Plants, Medicinal / classification
  • Structure-Activity Relationship

Substances

  • Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic
  • Drugs, Chinese Herbal