Application of transcriptomics in Chinese herbal medicine studies.
Transcriptomics using DNA microarray has become a practical and popular tool for herbal medicine study because of high throughput, sensitivity, accuracy, specificity, and reproducibility. Therefore, this article focuses on the overview of DNA microarray technology and the application of DNA microarray in Chinese herbal medicine study. To understand the number and the objectives of articles utilizing DNA microarray for herbal medicine study, we surveyed 297 frequently used Chinese medicinal herbs listed in Pharmacopoeia Commission of People's Republic of China. We classified these medicinal herbs into 109 families and then applied PudMed search using "microarray" and individual herbal family as keywords. Although thousands of papers applying DNA microarray in Chinese herbal studies have been published since 1998, most of the articles focus on the elucidation of mechanisms of certain biological effects of herbs. Construction of the bioactivity database containing large-scaled gene expression profiles of quality control herbs can be applied in the future to analyze the biological events induced by herbs, predict the therapeutic potential of herbs, evaluate the safety of herbs, and identify the drug candidate of herbs. Moreover, the linkage of systems biology tools, such as functional genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, pharmacogenomics and toxicogenomics, will become a new translational platform between Western medicine and Chinese herbal medicine.
Graduate Institute of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan.
Hsin-Yi
HY
Lo
Graduate Institute of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan.
Chia-Cheng
CC
Li
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chinese Medicine Resources, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan.
Hui-Chi
HC
Huang
School of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan.
Li-Jen
LJ
Lin
Department of Microbiology, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan.
Chien-Yun
CY
Hsiang
Department of Microbiology, China Medical University, Taichung 40402, Taiwan.
Tin-Yun
TY
Ho
Chinese herbal medicine; DNA microarray; Transcriptomics