[Combinations in Fangji of Chinese medicine: holistic view]

The modernization research on Fangji is not only an important approach to the improvement on the clinical effects of Chinese medicine, but also a representative field on the inheritance and innovation of Chinese medicine in this new historical period. For the rule of the combintions in Fangji, we proposed a hypothesis of "the holistic harmonious pharmacological effect", which is defined as the different efficacies of different combinations in Fangji deriving from the harmoniousness on the diversity of pharmacological effects like antagonism, complementarity, regulation, etc. In our paper, by analyzing the different pharmacological mechanisms in the differential genes and pathways for the additive effect on the combinations of gardenoside and baicalin as well as the synergy effect on the combinations of gardenoside and cholic acid, we introduced a developed analytical technique for the principle of comprehensive pharmacological effects, pointed out the encountered dilemma in the researches on the combinations in Fangji and at last proposed three transformations to the further researches in this fields.