MINI REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Experimental Pharmacology and Drug Discovery
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1703454
Application of network pharmacology in traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of cardiac diseases
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
- 2Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai, China
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Many innovative traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) play a significant role in cardioprotection against cardiac diseases by addressing the basic cause of heart attack, which presents as the dual deficiency of qi and yang. Network pharmacology, offering a multi-dimensional perspective, can elucidate the specific mechanisms of the active components of the TCM via system pharmacology strategy. The methodology of the network pharmacology was highly consistent with the improvement of modernization of TCM, provided a new perspective and theoretical basis for basic research and made supplementary to clinical research on cardiac diseases.This review summarizes the steps, the databases, and the software using in the network pharmacology systematically. It also introduces the current achievements on applying network pharmacology to understand the mechanisms of some important TCMs (Huangqi, Renshen and Danshen) and their active components in the context of cardioprotection against cardiac diseases via a comprehensive literature search on PubMed. Anti-inflammation, anti-oxidation, anti-apoptosis, anti-pyroptosis, and maintenance of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway were the main mechanisms of the TCM against cardiac diseases. In addition, it raised new ideas for the cure of cancer-induced cardiac injury via network pharmacology.
Keywords: Network Pharmacology, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Cardioprotection, cardiac diseases, mechanisms
Received: 11 Sep 2025; Accepted: 23 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhai, Chen, Xiao and Wu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lan Wu, wul@sumhs.edu.cn
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