Chinese herbal medicine has recently gained worldwide attention. The curative mechanism of Chinese herbal medicine is compared with that of western medicine at the molecular level. The treatment mechanism of most Chinese herbal medicines is still not clear. How do we integrate Chinese herbal medicine compounds with modern medicine? Chinese herbal medicine drug-like prediction method is particularly important. A growing number of Chinese herbal source compounds are now widely used as drug-like compound candidates. An important way for pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs is to discover potentially active compounds from related herbs in Chinese herbs. The methods for predicting the drug-like properties of Chinese herbal compounds include the virtual screening method, pharmacophore model method and machine learning method. In this paper, we focus on the prediction methods for the medicinal properties of Chinese herbal medicines. We analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the above three methods, and then introduce the specific steps of the virtual screening method. Finally, we present the prospect of the joint application of various methods.
Keywords: Chinese herbal compounds; comparative study; drug-likeness; virtual screening.