Recent highlights of metabolomics for traditional Chinese medicine

Systems biology is an emerging science of the 21st century and has developed in recent years from a technology-driven enterprise to a new strategic tool in life sciences as well as its method and design resemble those of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), a holistic approach to health that attempts to bring the body, mind and spirit into harmony. The technology platforms of systems biology, especially metabolomics could provide useful tools for facilitating drug discovery and development of TCM. Metabolomes of medicinal herbal medicine are particularly a valuable natural resource for the evidence-based TCM. Metabolomics adopts a 'top-down' strategy to reflect the function of organisms from terminal symptoms of metabolic network and understand metabolic changes of a complete system caused by interventions in holistic context. Its property consists with the holistic thinking of TCM, may beneficially provide an opportunity to scientifically express the meaning of evidence-based Chinese medicine, will greatly benefit both drug discovery and development for TCM research. Some successful metabolomic applications in important TCM field related to drug discovery and development from natural sources aims at raising the potential of metabolomics in reducing the gap between TCM and modern drug discovery demand, highlight the key role of biomarkers for drug discovery and development of traditional oriental medicine.