[Discovering active components from traditional Chinese medicine by component-knockout approach].
OBJECTIVE
A component-knockout approach was established to discover active components from traditional Chinese medicine.


METHODS
According to the principle of gene knockout technique, an experiment workflow for component-knockout method was developed, which is distinct from the bio-guided screening method. The differences of therapeutic efficacies between different combinations of individual components were analyzed by some statistical methods including Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), whilst a set of criterias were established to assess active components. By comparing the difference of drug efficacy between the original formulae and the mixture being knockout certain component, the active components can be identified.


RESULTS
The presented component-knockout method was applied to discover the active components of Shenmai formulae for the synergistic effects on the cyclophosphamide chemotherapy for S180 tumor-bearing mice. The results indicated that panoxadiol, a type of ginsenosides, were the effective components of Shenmai formulae.


CONCLUSIONS
A new method for identifying effective components from Chinese medicinal formulae was developed and successfully applied to discover the active components of Shenmai Formulae, which possesses the synergistic actions towards chemotherapy process.
Yu
Lingyan
L
Department of Chinese Medicine Science & Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
Wang
Yi
Y
Fan
Xiaohui
X
Qu
Haibin
H
Cheng
Yiyu
Y
D000465:Algorithms; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004338:Drug Combinations; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D055786:Gene Knockout Techniques; D036145:Ginsenosides / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D051379:Mice; D008517:Phytotherapy; D021241:Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization
D004338:Drug Combinations; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal; D036145:Ginsenosides; C009252:fructus schizandrae, radix ginseng, radix ophiopogonis drug combination