Computational methods and applications for quantitative systems pharmacology

Abstract

Background: Quantitative systems pharmacology (QSP) is an emerging discipline that integrates diverse data to quantitatively explore the interactions between drugs and multi-scale systems including small compounds, nucleic acids, proteins, pathways, cells, organs and disease processes.

Results: Various computational methods such as ADME/T evaluation, molecular modeling, logical modeling, network modeling, pathway analysis, multi-scale systems pharmacology platforms and virtual patient for QSP have been developed. We reviewed the major progresses and broad applications in medical guidance, drug discovery and exploration of pharmacodynamic material basis and mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine.

Conclusion: QSP has significant achievements in recent years and is a promising approach for quantitative evaluation of drug efficacy and systematic exploration of mechanisms of action of drugs.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

quantitative systems pharmacology / network modeling / multi-scale platforms / traditional Chinese medicine

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the start-up support for scientific research of Xinglin Young Scholar in Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine (A1-AFD018161Z04).

COMPLIANCE WITH ETHICAL GUIDELINES

Fuda Xie and Jiangyong Gu declare that they have no conflict of interests.ƒThis article is a review article and does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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