Insights into traditional Chinese medicine-microbe interaction using traditional Chinese medical microecology

Abstract

be developed, including the soil or atmospheric microbe, plant endophyte, and microecological structure environmental factors. Secondly, the relationship between microecology and quality utility of TCM should be discoursed. The microecology and the microbial functional genes involved in active/ toxic compound metabolism,2–5 growth regulation,6,7 and pest/disease resistance play an important role in drug discovery, cultivation, and medicinal plant physiology and pathology, respectively.8,9 Thirdly, the interaction of TCM and human microecology should be viewed for a wide knowledge that the regulation effect of TCM on human intestinal flora, the disposal mechanism of human microorganism on TCM,10,11 and the human microecology reconstruction using TCM microbe therapy. Human intestinal flora has become a new target for further understanding human physiology and pathology, opening up a new way for the treatment of clinical diseases and greatly promoting the development of preventive and health care medicine.12,13