Increasing attention has been paid to the application of precision medicine in heart failure (HF), and biomarker-based personalized medical care has shown great progress in HF management. Additionally, multicomponent drugs represented by traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) are demonstrating safety and efficacy in the management of HF. However, the potential mechanism is unclear, and the ambiguous clinical locations of TCM remain a hindrance to its extensive application. To meet this requirement, a precise investigation on the efficacy of multicomponent drugs against HF using the signature biomarkers-oriented approach was developed and applied to a conventional drug for cardiac disease, YiXinShu (YXS). On the basis of in vitro and in vivo efficacy evaluation of YXS against HF, and with the aid of proteomics and network pharmacology approaches, specific signatures regulated by YXS against HF were identified. YXS may show distinctive treatment features for those HF patients showing the elevation of fatty acid-binding protein 3 and cytoskeleton-associated protein 5, as well as other classic HF biomarkers. This study provides the first precise investigation of the efficacy of multicomponent drugs against HF and offers a practicable and low-cost approach for personalized management of HF.-Wei, J., Guo, F., Zhang, M., Xian, M., Wang, T., Gao, J., Wu, H., Song, L., Zhang, Y., Li, D., Yang, H., Huang, L. Signature-oriented investigation of the efficacy of multicomponent drugs against heart failure.
Keywords: biomarker; personalized medicine; traditional Chinese medicine.