Understanding the treatment of acute pancreatitis and its complications -a database for assessing traditional Chinese medicine use

TL;DR

This paper introduces TCMAP, a database platform for studying traditional Chinese medicine treatments for acute pancreatitis and their mechanisms.

Contribution

The novel contribution is the development of a comprehensive database and analysis platform for TCM treatments of acute pancreatitis.

Findings

TCMAP includes 200 TCM formulations with detailed clinical and mechanistic data.

The platform supports similarity and enrichment analyses of herbal prescriptions.

It enables discovery of herb pairs with shared metabolites and targets.

Abstract

Integrative medicine combining traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with biomedicine has become a notable approach for treating acute pancreatitis (AP). However, the absence of a comprehensive and reliable database to store and organize TCM-related data for the prevention and treatment of AP presents a significant challenge for the development of herbal medicines. To develop a comprehensive, user-friendly platform for browsing, querying, and analyzing TCM-related data for treating AP.

TCM-related data for treating AP were systematically extracted from the literature and established databases. The front-end interface was developed using HyperText Markup Language, Cascading Style Sheets, and JavaScript to enhance user experience. The back-end employed Hypertext Preprocessor and My Structured Query Language for improved performance and security. The Smarty template engine was utilized to separate the front-end and back-end, facilitating efficient updates to the TCMAP platform.

The current version of the TCMAP includes: (i) documentation of 200 evidence-based TCM formulations, with comprehensive details on clinical applications, targets related to AP, and target pathway enrichment analysis, including 449 herbs; (ii) records of 58 natural metabolites, involving extensive information on their potential targets and pharmacological properties; and (iii) integration with a web server enables users to conduct similarity and enrichment analyses of input prescriptions based on herbs, metabolites, and genes. Furthermore, TCMAP also supports discovering anti-AP herb pairs with similar metabolites and targets. Network analysis further provides users with the intrinsic properties of anti-AP formulations. The TCMAP provides a robust data platform for predicting new metabolites and exploring the potential mechanisms of TCM in treating AP. The TCMAP is accessible at https://cellknowledge.com.cn/tcmap.

Figures