Immunoenhancement Powered by Astragali Radix with the Tonifying Qi Effect Identified in Chinese Medicine

摘要

Astragali Radix, called Huang-Qi in Chinese, is a widely used traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with therapeutic effects of “tonifying qi” that is identified in both TCM formulae, textbooks, and the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China. However, the underlying mechanisms of the bioactive compounds and target proteins are still under exploration. In this study, based on evidenced bioactive compounds and targeted genes/proteins, different level functional annotations towards gene ontology biological processes and KEGG pathways were deployed and validated. As a result, the candidate molecular regulation network was constructed towards the “tonifying qi”. Functional annotation indicated one outstanding biological process called cell killing which is tightly associated with immunoenhancement. In short, the “tonifying qi” effect identified in TCM on Astragali Radix might be associated with immunoenhancement by various modern bio-medical studies.