NPCDR: natural product-based drug combination and its disease-specific molecular regulation

Abstract

Natural product (NP) has a long history in promoting modern drug discovery, which has derived or inspired a large number of currently prescribed drugs. Recently, the NPs have emerged as the ideal candidates to combine with other therapeutic strategies to deal with the persistent challenge of conventional therapy, and the molecular regulation mechanism underlying these combinations is crucial for the related communities. Thus, it is urgently demanded to comprehensively provide the disease-specific molecular regulation data for various NP-based drug combinations. However, no database has been developed yet to describe such valuable information. In this study, a newly developed database entitled ‘Natural Product-based Drug Combination and Its Disease-specific Molecular Regulation (NPCDR)’ was thus introduced. This database was unique in (a) providing the comprehensive information of NP-based drug combinations & describing their clinically or experimentally validated therapeutic effect, (b) giving the disease-specific molecular regulation data for a number of NP-based drug combinations, (c) fully referencing all NPs, drugs, regulated molecules/pathways by cross-linking them to the available databases describing their biological or pharmaceutical characteristics. Therefore, NPCDR is expected to have great implications for the future practice of network pharmacology, medical biochemistry, drug design, and medicinal chemistry. This database is now freely accessible without any login requirement at both official (https://idrblab.org/npcdr/) and mirror (http://npcdr.idrblab.net/) sites.

Bioactive Compounds, Pharmacological Actions, and Pharmacokinetics of Genus Acacia

“…Meanwhile, for the treatment of several medical conditions, supplements of herbal drugs are used around the world. These are used in combination with drugs or used alone [ 149 ]. In some cases, the combined use of herbs and drugs may alter the pharmacokinetic profile of drugs [ 150 ].…”

The 2022Nucleic Acids Researchdatabase issue and the online molecular biology database collection

“…and presenting interactions in a variety of attractive visualisations. NPCDR ( 90 ) works in a similar area but focuses on cases where at least one of the drugs involved is based on a natural product. Cellular responses to drugs are captured by the new CeDR database ( 91 ), which uses single cell transcriptomics data to capture the characteristic drug responses of different cells and tissues, in human and mouse and in health and disease.…”

Isoquinoline Alkaloids from Coptis chinensis Franch: Focus on Coptisine as a Potential Therapeutic Candidate against Gastric Cancer Cells

“…These limitations incline studies toward the development of new therapies based on natural products combined with conventional clinically-used chemotherapeutic drugs. The clinical goal of the combination treatment is to reduce the dose of the active drug while preserving its efficacy or reducing toxicity [ 71 ]. Numerous studies both on in vitro and in vivo models of cancer have reported potentiation of the activity of clinical drugs such as CDDP, 5-fluorouracil, doxorubicin, paclitaxel, gemcitabine, and imatinib by natural compounds e.g., alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, polyphenols, and flavonoids, including our previous reports [ 48 , 72 , 73 , 74 ].…”