摘要：

Though Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has long been playing a significant role in the maintenance of health for people in Asia as well as many other places, the mechanism of its action still remains ambiguous for most of the plants used in TCM, such as Radix Isatidis, a kind of herb that is widely used to help in the treatment of respiratory tract diseases nowadays. However, its functioning mechanism is still unknown. Thus it is necessary to explore the mechanism of Radix Isatidis. A computer simulation method combining drug-likeness evaluation, oral bioavailability prediction, multiple drug targets prediction as well as network pharmacology techniques have been used. This comprehensive network approach helped to successfully identify 51 candidate compounds contained in Radix Isatidis, while 29 potential targets were hit by these ingredients and helped to uncover the synergistic mechanism of action on a systemic level. Our work successfully explains the mechanism of the efficiency of Radix Isatidis for the treatment of respiratory tract diseases. These results not only provide a new insight for the understanding of the chemical and pharmacological basis of Radix Isatidis, but also provide an efficient way for drug discovery from herbal medicine.

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