Network Medicine: A Potential Approach for Virtual Drug Screening

Abstract

Traditional drug screening methods typically focus on a single protein target and exhibit limited efficiency due to the multifactorial nature of most diseases, which result from disturbances within complex networks of protein–protein interactions rather than single gene abnormalities. Addressing this limitation requires a comprehensive drug screening strategy. Network medicine is rooted in systems biology and provides a comprehensive framework for understanding disease mechanisms, prevention, and therapeutic innovations. This approach not only explores the associations between various diseases but also quantifies the relationships between disease genes and drug targets within interactome networks, thus facilitating the prediction of drug–disease relationships and enabling the screening of therapeutic drugs for specific complex diseases. An increasing body of research supports the efficiency and utility of network-based strategies in drug screening. This review highlights the transformative potential of network medicine in virtual therapeutic screening for complex diseases, offering novel insights and a robust foundation for future drug discovery endeavors.

Keywords

• network medicine
• protein–protein interaction (PPI)
• network proximity
• drug screening
• disease gene
• drug target