title: Network pharmacology-based study on the mechanism of action for herbal medicines in Alzheimer treatment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Alzheimer's disease (AD), as the most common type of dementia, has brought a heavy economic burden to healthcare system around the world. However, currently there is still lack of effective treatment for AD patients. Herbal medicines, featured as multiple herbs, ingredients and targets, have accumulated a great deal of valuable experience in treating AD although the exact molecular mechanisms are still unclear.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this investigation, we proposed a network pharmacology-based method, which combined large-scale text-mining, drug-likeness filtering, target prediction and network analysis to decipher the mechanisms of action for the most widely studied medicinal herbs in AD treatment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The text mining of PubMed resulted in 10 herbs exhibiting significant correlations with AD. Subsequently, after drug-likeness filtering, 1016 compounds were remaining for 10 herbs, followed by structure clustering to sum up chemical scaffolds of herb ingredients. Based on target prediction results performed by our in-house protocol named AlzhCPI, compound-target (C-T) and target-pathway (T-P) networks were constructed to decipher the mechanism of action for anti-AD herbs.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Overall, this approach provided a novel strategy to explore the mechanisms of herbal medicine from a holistic perspective.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; Department of Encephalopathy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China.
authors.forename: Jiansong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Fermentation and Enzyme Engineering, Pre-Incubator for Innovative Drugs & Medicine, School of Bioscience and Bioengineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
authors.forename: Ling
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; Department of Encephalopathy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China.
authors.forename: Tian
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; Department of Encephalopathy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China.
authors.forename: Cong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Modern Research Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; Department of Encephalopathy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China.
authors.forename: Haobin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning 530001, China.
authors.forename: Junhui
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; Department of Encephalopathy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China.
authors.forename: Shuhuan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; Department of Encephalopathy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China.
authors.forename: Yunbo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China. Electronic address: went@scut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; Department of Encephalopathy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China. Electronic address: wqitcm@qq.com.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D008517:Phytotherapy; D028321:Plant Preparations / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D010946:Plants, Medicinal
chemical_list: D028321:Plant Preparations
keywords: Alzheimer; Berberine (PubChem CID: 2353); Crocin (PubChem CID: 5281233); Cryptotanshinone (PubChem CID: 160254); Curcumin (PubChem CID: 969516); Ginsenoside Rd (PubChem CID: 11679800); Ginsenoside Rg1 (PubChem CID: 441923); Ginsenoside Rg2 (PubChem CID: 75412551); Ginsenoside Rg3 (PubChem CID: 9918693); Ginsenoside Rg5 (PubChem CID: 44416768); Herbal medicines; Network pharmacology; Salvianolic acid A (PubChem CID: 5281793); Salvianolic acid B (PubChem CID: 11629084); Tanshinone IIA (PubChem CID: 164676); Target prediction; Tenuifolin (PubChem CID: 21588226); kaempferol (PubChem CID: 5280863); quercetin (PubChem CID: 5280343)