DCDB 2.0: a major update of the drug combination database

Experience in clinical practice and research in systems pharmacology suggested the limitations of the current one-drug-one-target paradigm in new drug discovery. Single-target drugs may not always produce desired physiological effects on the entire biological system, even if they have successfully regulated the activities of their designated targets. On the other hand, multicomponent therapy, in which two or more agents simultaneously interact with multiple targets, has attracted growing attention. Many drug combinations consisting of multiple agents have already entered clinical practice, especially in treating complex and refractory diseases. Drug combination database (DCDB), launched in 2010, is the first available database that collects and organizes information on drug combinations, with an aim to facilitate systems-oriented new drug discovery. Here, we report the second major release of DCDB (Version 2.0), which includes 866 new drug combinations (1363 in total), consisting of 904 distinctive components. These drug combinations are curated from ∼140,000 clinical studies and the food and drug administration (FDA) electronic orange book. In this update, DCDB collects 237 unsuccessful drug combinations, which may provide a contrast for systematic discovery of the patterns in successful drug combinations. Database URL: http://www.cls.zju.edu.cn/dcdb/