How Chinese medicine kills cancer cells.

Researchers have shown how a complex mix of plant compounds derived from ancient clinical practice in China -- a Traditional Chinese Medicine -- works to kill cancer cells. Researchers at the University of Adelaide have shown how a complex mix of plant compounds derived from ancient clinical practice in China ,a Traditional Chinese Medicine works to kill cancer cells.The study, published in the journal Oncotarget, is one of the first to characterize the molecular action of a Traditional Chinese Medicine rather than breaking it down to its constituent parts. Compound kushen injection (CKI) is approved for use in China to treat various cancer tumors, usually as an adjunct to western chemotherapy .but how it works has not been known until recently. Traditional Chinese Medicine are based on hundreds or thousands of years of experience with their use in China, there is often a lot of evidence that these medicines have a therapeutic benefit, but there isn't the understanding of how or why. When the components of many of Traditional Chinese Medicines are broken down and tested independently, it was discovered that individual compounds don't have much activity on their own. This indicate that the combination of various compounds can be effective, and potentially means few side-effects as well. This is one of the first studies to show the molecular mode of action of a complex mixture of plant-based compounds,here extracts from the roots of two medicinal herbs, Kushen and Baituling were analyzed by applying a systems biology approach. This is a way of analyzing complex biological systems that attempts to take into account all measurable aspects of the system rather than focusing on a single variable. The researchers used high-throughput next generation sequencing technologies to identify genes and biological pathways targeted by CKI when applied to breast cancer cells grown in the laboratory.The result showed that the patterns of gene expression triggered by CKI affect the same pathways as western chemotherapy but by acting on different genes in the same pathways.These genes regulate the cell cycle of division and death, and CKI alters the way the cell cycle is regulated to push cancer cells down the cell death pathway, therefore killing the cells. The basic understanding of system biology approach has yielded positive results in the field of medicine, an example is the antimalarial drug, artemisinin, originally derived from traditional Chinese medicine, is now being produced either as a precursor molecule in yeast or through synthetic biology systems.