Drug discovery today
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Drug discovery today · Feb 2014
ReviewMetabolomics and systems pharmacology: why and how to model the human metabolic network for drug discovery.
Metabolism represents the 'sharp end' of systems biology, because changes in metabolite concentrations are necessarily amplified relative to changes in the transcriptome, proteome and enzyme activities, which can be modulated by drugs. To understand such behaviour, we therefore need (and increasingly have) reliable consensus (community) models of the human metabolic network that include the important transporters. ⋯ However, even these qualitative network models are not yet complete. As our understanding improves so do we recognise more clearly the need for a systems (poly)pharmacology.