title: Mass spectrometry-driven drug discovery for development of herbal medicine.
abstract: Herbal medicine (HM) has made a major contribution to the drug discovery process with regard to identifying products compounds. Currently, more attention has been focused on drug discovery from natural compounds of HM. Despite the rapid advancement of modern analytical techniques, drug discovery is still a difficult and lengthy process. Fortunately, mass spectrometry (MS) can provide us with useful structural information for drug discovery, has been recognized as a sensitive, rapid, and high-throughput technology for advancing drug discovery from HM in the post-genomic era. It is essential to develop an efficient, high-quality, high-throughput screening method integrated with an MS platform for early screening of candidate drug molecules from natural products. We have developed a new chinmedomics strategy reliant on MS that is capable of capturing the candidate molecules, facilitating their identification of novel chemical structures in the early phase; chinmedomics-guided natural product discovery based on MS may provide an effective tool that addresses challenges in early screening of effective constituents of herbs against disease. This critical review covers the use of MS with related techniques and methodologies for natural product discovery, biomarker identification, and determination of mechanisms of action. It also highlights high-throughput chinmedomics screening methods suitable for lead compound discovery illustrated by recent successes.
authors.affiliation: Sino-America Chinmedomics Technology Collaboration Center, National TCM Key Laboratory of Serum Pharmacochemistry, Chinmedomics Research Center of TCM State Administration, Metabolomics Laboratory, Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Aihua
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Sino-America Chinmedomics Technology Collaboration Center, National TCM Key Laboratory of Serum Pharmacochemistry, Chinmedomics Research Center of TCM State Administration, Metabolomics Laboratory, Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Sino-America Chinmedomics Technology Collaboration Center, National TCM Key Laboratory of Serum Pharmacochemistry, Chinmedomics Research Center of TCM State Administration, Metabolomics Laboratory, Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Xijun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis / Q000378:metabolism; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods*; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000379:methods*; D029001:Herbal Medicine; D006801:Humans; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D015394:Molecular Structure; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry*; D057285:Precision Medicine; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D010936:Plant Extracts
keywords: biomarker; chinmedomics; herbal medicine; lead compounds; mass spectrometry; metabolite; natural products