中药现代化研究的重要任务之一即明确中药(方剂)复杂药效物质基础及其配伍机制,但几十年来大部分中药的确切机制仍没有被阐明。原因一,中药的靶点不是西方人所理解的病的靶点,而是证的靶点。证强调疾病表型之间的关联,故中药的靶点是联系的靶点,组合的靶点;原因二,中药药效的物质基础不是一种有效单体,而是多种成分的有效组方。方是在证的基础上进行合理配伍和加减而建立的,是有规律和规则的,相应的中药不是孤立地作用于病的靶点而是系统地作用于证的靶点。西医有可以治疗该疾病相应靶点的药物,那么中医就有该证相应组合靶点的复方。目前认为,中药配伍的意义在于通过由特定活性物质群介导的多靶点、多途径整合作用发挥方证对应的终末效应。同时将中药配伍筛选为有效组分配伍,利用有效组分配伍阐明中药整合作用已成为近年来的普遍研究模式。而在传统的实验药理上,融合数学、生物信息学等多学科的定量药理学、逆向药理学、多向药理或网络药理学有助于理解中医药在治疗复杂性疾病中体现的整体性、系统性特点。
Definitely,an important task of the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) is to elucidate the complex material basis and mechanisms effect.However,the work was not well done in the past several decades.On the one hand,the action targets of TCM are based on "Zheng" in Chinese Mandarin and can't be understood as the diseases targets in the West,while "Zheng" goes far beyond disease phenotypes and emphasizes the linkages among them.Western medicine is characterized by one drug with one specific target and quite differently,the evidence of TCM is a combination of drug targets;On the other hand,Chinese material medicines contain a variety of components involved in each prescription,and prescription is exactly established on the rational compatibility and subtraction upon the "Zheng" theory.Therefore,Western medicine is recognized as an exclusive target for treatment of a disease,but TCM serves as an appropriate combination of targets in "Zheng".Since that TCM constitutes the active substance group,a multi-component and multi-target integration effect leads to its terminal pharmacological action based on correspondence of prescription with the syndrome of TCM.Recently,the use of the effective ingredients of TCM to simplify the study in integration effect of TCM has become a universal research model and practice,and in addition to the conventional experimental pharmacology,mathematics,biology information science,quantitative pharmacology,reverse pharmacology,polypharmacology or network pharmacology and other interdisciplinary technology may help to understand the holistic,systematic characteristics embodied in TCM in the treatment of complex diseases.