The prevalence of coronary heart disease(CHD) is increasing,and has been a severe burden on society and family worldwide.New ideas need to be achieved for developing more efficacious and safe therapies to treat CHD.Chinese medicine(CM) uses multicomponent drugs to prevent disease and ameliorate symptoms based on patients' different syndromes.The benefit of CM in CHD has recently been proven by increasing clinical evidence.More importantly,linking CM syndrome differentiation and biomedical diagnosis might provide innovative thinking for treating CHD.According to epidemiological investigations,blood stasis syndrome(BSS)is the major type of syndrome in CHD.Investigating the biomedical mechanisms of BSS of CHD is a topic of CM research.Because the holistic perspective of systems biology is well matched with CM,the application of omics techniques and other integrative approaches appears inherently appropriate.A wide range of omics techniques,including transcriptomics and proteomics,have been used in studies of BSS of CHD to search for a common ground of understanding.These approaches could be useful for understanding BSS of CHD from clinical and biological viewpoints.Nevertheless,current studies mainly contain results from a single approach,and they have not achieved the holistic,systematic and integrative concept of system biology.Therefore,we discuss the progress and challenges in exploring the biomedical mechanisms of BSS of CHD by systems biology approaches.With further development of systems biology,a better platform to study BSS of CHD may be provided,and biomarkers for BSS of CHD and therapeutic targets may be found.The study of BSS of CHD by systems biology approaches will also be beneficial for developing personalized treatment for BSS of CHD patients.
The medical community as a whole is attempting to start preventive therapy for coronary heart disease(CHD) patients earlier in life.However,the main limitations of such interventions are drug resistance and adverse reactions.Additionally,traditional biomarker discovery methods for CHD focus on the behavior of individual biomarkers regardless of their relevance.These limitations have led to attempting novel approaches to multi-dimensionally investigate CHD and identify safe and efficacious therapies for preventing CHD.Recently,the benefit of Chinese medicine(CM) in CHD has been proven by increasing clinical evidence.More importantly,linking CM theory with modern biomedicine may lead to new scientific discoveries.According to CM theory,all treatments for patients should be based on patients' syndromes.A recent epidemiological investigation has demonstrated that blood stasis syndrome(BSS) is the major syndrome type of CHD.BSS is a type of complex pathophysiological state characterized by decreased or impeded blood flow.Common clinical features of BSS include a darkish complexion,scaly dry skin,and cyanosis of the lips and nails,a purple or dark tongue with purple spots,a thready and hesitant pulse,and stabbing or pricking pain fixed in location accompanied by tenderness,mass formation and ecchymosis or petechiae.The severity of BSS is significantly correlated with the complexity of coronary lesions and the degree of stenosis,and is an important factor affecting the occurrence of restenosis after percutaneous coronary intervention.The mechanisms of BSS of CHD patients should be investigated from a modern medicine perspective.Although many studies have attempted to explore the biomedical mechanisms of BSS of CHD,from hemorheological disorders to inflammation and immune responses,the global picture of BSS of CHD is still unclear.In this article,the current status of studies investigating the biomedical mechanisms of BSS of CHD and future perspectives are discussed.
Objective: To investigate the mechanisms of Panax notoginseng saponins(PNS) in treating coronary heart disease(CHD) by integrating gene interaction network and functional enrichment analysis. Methods: Text mining was used to get CHD and PNS associated genes. Gene–gene interaction networks of CHD and PNS were built by the Gene MANIA Cytoscape plugin. Advanced Network Merge Cytoscape plugin was used to analyze the two networks. Their functions were analyzed by gene functional enrichment analysis via DAVID Bioinformatics. Joint subnetwork of CHD network and PNS network was identified by network analysis. Results: The 11 genes of the joint subnetwork were the direct targets of PNS in CHD network and enriched in cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction pathway. PNS could affect other 85 genes by the gene–gene interaction of joint subnetwork and these genes were enriched in other 7 pathways. The direct mechanisms of PNS in treating CHD by targeting cytokines to relieve the inflammation and the indirect mechanisms of PNS in treating CHD by affecting other 7 pathways through the interaction of joint subnetwork of PNS and CHD network. The genes in the 7 pathways could be potential targets for the immunologic adjuvant, anticoagulant, hypolipidemic, anti-platelet and anti-hypertrophic activities of PNS. Conclusion: The key mechanisms of PNS in treating CHD could be anticoagulant and hypolipidemic which are indicated by analyzing biological functions of hubs in the merged network.
