Multi-omics research strategies in traditional Chinese medicine: A review

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been employed to treat a wide range of ailments for millennia. Although the active ingredients of TCM typically have lower concentration of active compounds compared to Western medications based on conventional metrics, they frequently exert synergistic therapeutic effects on multiple targets. These varied effects hinder widespread adoption by making it challenging to evaluate efficacy and comprehend underlying mechanisms. High-throughput omics methods, particularly genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and transcriptomics, open up new avenues for discovering biomarkers related to quality control, safety evaluation, authentication, and elucidating processing mechanisms. This paper reviews developments in these omics over recent decades, summarizes their applications in pharmaceutical research for quality control, toxicity evaluation, processing, and authentication, and discusses omics limitations. We also highlight how integrative omics and systems biology can advance TCM understanding and standardization.