title: Study on the networks of "Nature-Family-Component" of Chinese medicinal herbs based on association rules mining.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore appropriate methods for the research of the theory of Chinese medicine nature property and find the relationship between Nature-Family-Component of Chinese herbs.
  
  
  METHODS
  From perspective of systems biology, we used Associate Network to identify useful relationships among "Nature-Family-Component" of Herbs. In this work, Associate Network combines association rules mining method and network construction method to evaluate the complicate relationship among "Nature-Family-Component" of herbs screened.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results of association rules mining showed that the families had a close relationship with nature properties of herbs. For example, the families of Magnoliaceae, Araceae had a close relationship with hot nature with confidence of 100%, the families of Cucurbitaceae has a close relationship to cold nature with confidence of 90.91%. Moreover, the results of constructed Associate Network implied that herbs belonging to the same families generally had the same natures. In addition, some herbs belonging to different families may also have same natures when they contain the same main components.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results implied that the main components of herbs might affect their natures; the relationships between families and natures were based on the main compounds of herbs.
authors: School of Information Management, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, China.
authors: Xian-jun
authors: XJ
authors: Fu
authors: Zhen-guo
authors: ZG
authors: Wang
authors: Yi
authors: Y
authors: Qu
authors: Peng
authors: P
authors: Wang
authors: Yang
authors: Y
authors: Zhou
authors: Hua-yun
authors: HY
authors: Yu
mesh_terms: D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional / Q000379:methods*; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification
chemical_list: D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal
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