Review of Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacokinetics – International Edition – Volume 38 (2024) – Supplementary Issue 2

Published: 5 May 2024; https://doi.org/10.61873/ZXQS4380

Abstract
Network pharmacology as a “green approach”, predicting metabolite behaviours chemically and biologically and guiding biological experimental design, is a new strategy aiming to uncover the mechanism of action of natural products as drug candidates. It provides a powerful way to identify novel mechanisms of natural products with potential therapeutic effects. This approach has emerged as a powerful tool to overcome the limitations of traditional methods, such as the ability to predict the adverse effects of a drug and the likelihood of failure during clinical trials, by applying systems biology principles to the field of pharmacology. This method combines the multi-omics dataset, computer modeling, and chemical biology so as to reveal pharmaceutical actions and guide drug discovery. Therefore, computer-aided drug design combined with network pharmacology can be viewed as a novel in silico screening approach to drug discovery, by utilising chemoinformatics, bioinformatics, structure biology, and chemical biology. This strategy includes target-based virtual screening – molecular docking, ligand similarity-based virtual screening, and inverse screening (Inver-dock), providing a powerful tool for target identification of drug candidates, multitarget discovery, and natural bioactive product profiling. It can also be used for selectivity profiling of drugs, drug repositioning, safety profiling, and metabolism profiling prediction (ADMET).

Keywords: network pharmacology, computer-aided drug design, molecular docking, virtual screening, ethnopharmacology

Please cite as:
Liu J. Network pharmacology speaking to ethnopharmacology: new data on an ancient remedy. Rev. Clin. Pharmacol. Pharmacokinet. Int. Ed. 38(Sup2): 27-29 (2024). https://doi.org/10.61873/ZXQS4380