TCDO: A Community-Based Ontology for Integrative Representation and Analysis of Traditional Chinese Drugs and Their Properties

Traditional Chinese drugs (TCDs) have been widely used in clinical practice in China and many other regions for thousands of years. Nowadays TCD’s bioactive ingredients and mechanisms of action are being identified. However, the lack of standardized terminologies or ontologies for the description of TCDs has hindered the interoperability and deep analysis of TCD knowledge and data. By aligning with the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), an ISO-approved top-level ontology, we constructed a community-driven TCD ontology (TCDO) with the aim of supporting standardized TCD representation and integrated analysis. TCDO provides logical and textual definitions of TCDs, TCD categories, and the properties of TCDs (i.e., nature, flavor, toxicity, and channel tropism). More than 400 popular TCD decoction pieces (TCD-DPs) and Chinese medicinal materials (CMMs) are systematically represented. The logical TCD representation in TCDO supports computer-assisted reasoning and queries using tools such as Description Logic (DL) and SPARQL queries. Our statistical analysis of the knowledge represented in TCDO revealed scientific insights about TCDs. A total of 36 TCDs with medium or high toxicity are most densely distributed, primarily in Aconitum genus, Lamiids clade, and Fabids clade. TCD toxicity is mostly associated with the hot nature and pungent or bitter flavors and has liver, kidney, and spleen channel tropism. The three pairs of TCD flavor-nature associations (i.e., bitter-cold, pungent-warm, and sweet-neutral) were identified. The significance of these findings is discussed. TCDO has also been used to support the development of a web-based traditional Chinese medicine semantic annotation system that provides comprehensive annotation for individual TCDs. As a novel formal TCD ontology, TCDO lays out a strong foundation for more advanced TCD studies in the future.

The Effect of Shenyi Capsule on Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Combined with Chemotherapy from the Yin-Yang Perspective

As an example of Shenyi capsule on non-small-cell lung cancer combined with chemotherapy, this review discusses the synergistic effect and mechanism of natural drugs in oncotherapy from the yin-yang perspective in ancient Chinese philosophy, so as to reflect the therapeutic principle of natural drugs for tumor more comprehensively. The major focuses of this review are on the philosophical thinking of yin-yang as a tool which can not only explain the effect of Shenyi capsule in NSCLC combined with chemotherapy but also explore the mechanism of Shenyi capsule at the cellular and molecular level. Learning from the “yin-yang” thinking of ancient Chinese philosophy will bring more enlightenment to the research and development of traditional Chinese drugs in the future.

Current Drugs with Potential for Treatment of COVID-19: A Literature Review

Purpose: SARS-CoV-2 first emerged in China in December 2019 and rapidly spread worldwide. No vaccine or approved drug is available to eradicate the virus, however, some drugs that are indicated for other afflictions seems to be potentially beneficial to treat the infection albeit without unequivocal evidence. The aim of this article is to review the published background on the effectiveness of these drugs against COVID-19 Methods: A thorough literature search was conducted on recently published studies which have published between January 1 to March 25, 2020. PubMed, Google Scholar and Science Direct databases were searched Results: A total 22 articles were found eligible. 8 discuss about treatment outcomes from their applied drugs during treatment of COVID-19 patients, 4 report laboratory tests, one report animal trial and other 9 articles discuss recommendations and suggestions based on the treatment process and clinical outcomes of other diseases such as malaria, ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The data and/or recommendations are categorized in 4 classes: (a) anti-viral and anti-inflammatory drugs, (b) anti-malaria drugs, (c) traditional Chinese drugs and (d) other treatments/drugs. Conclusion: All examined treatments, although potentiality effective against COVID-19, need either appropriate drug development or clinical trial to be suitable for clinical use.

Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine for Whitening

Melanin is the chief pigment responsible for the pigmentation of human skin. Increasing evidence indicates that traditional Chinese drugs with skin-whitening effects are attracting the attention of consumers and researchers because they are perceived to be milder, safer, and healthier than synthetic alternatives. This commentary summarizes the current research on Chinese herbal medicines that inhibit melanin and their biological activities. The findings presented in this study suggest that these traditional Chinese herbal medicines might be potential candidates for novel skin-whitening agents.