UNaProd: A Universal Natural Product Database for Materia Medica of Iranian Traditional Medicine

Abstract

Background: Iranian traditional medicine (ITM) is a holistic medical system that uses a wide range of medicinal substances to treat disease. Reorganization and standardization of the data on ITM concepts is a necessity for optimal use of this rich source. In an initial step towards this goal, we created a database of ITM materia medica. Main Body. Primarily based on Makhzan al-Advieh, which is the most recent encyclopedia of materia medica in ITM with the largest number of monographs, a database of natural medicinal substances was created using both text mining methods and manual editing. UNaProd, a Universal Natural Product database for materia medica of ITM, is currently host to 2696 monographs, from herbal to animal to mineral compounds in 16 diverse attributes such as origin and scientific name. Currently, systems biology, and more precisely systems medicine and pharmacology, can be an aid in providing rationalizations for many traditional medicines and elucidating a great deal of knowledge they can offer to guide future research in medicine.

Conclusions: A database of materia medica is a stepping stone in creating a systems pharmacology platform of ITM that encompasses the relationships between the drugs, their targets, and diseases. UNaProd is hyperlinked to IrGO and CMAUP databases for Mizaj and molecular features, respectively, and it is freely available at http://jafarilab.com/unaprod/.

Figure 1

UNaProd construction pipeline. The database was created by text mining Makhzan al-Advieh to extract the primary fields from the text and secondary fields from SciResources, IrGO, and CMAUP. Subsequently, all fields were manually reviewed, and secondary tuples were added to the database. In the next step, the web interface was designed to create an online database.

Figure 2

(a) Frequency of each origin (herbal, animal, mineral, and others) in UNaProd database; (b) the share of each origin in the main ITM Mizaj types. (c) Frequency of scientific names extracted for drugs with herbal, animal, and mineral origins. (d) The most common plant families of UNaProd extracted from each of the scientific name resources. (e) Frequency of the main Mizaj types of drug monographs in UNaProd. The numbers on each bar represent the exact number of frequencies.

Figure 3

Mizaj degrees based on active (hotness/coldness) versus passive (wetness/dryness) qualities in Mizaj types of UNaProd drug monographs. In all plots, the x axis is the active degree and the y axis is the count of drug monographs. (a) Hotness degree versus dryness degree in drugs with hot-dry Mizaj; (b) coldness degree versus dryness degree in drugs with cold-dry Mizaj; (c) hotness degree versus wetness degree in drugs with hot-wet Mizaj; (d) coldness degree versus wetness degree in drugs with cold-wet Mizaj; (e) active degree versus passive degree in drugs with balanced Mizaj; (f) active degree versus passive degree in drugs with Morakkab al-Ghovaa Mizaj.

Figure 4

Mizaj jittered scatterplots of UNaProd drug monographs in terms of active versus passive quality faceted by origin. (a) Herbal drug monographs; (b) animal drug monographs; (c) mineral drug monographs; (d) compound drug monographs. The two perpendicular lines in each plot indicate balance in either axis. The active quality consists of the main degrees of hotness and coldness, while passive quality includes the main degrees from fourth degree in dryness to fourth degree in wetness. As some Mizaj descriptions do not contain the exact degree, a further factor-DNS (degree not specified) has been defined for each quality.

Figure 5

UNaProd home page including an introduction to UNaProd along with the following features: the “database” link; a “user manual”; and “Statistics.”