MOLECULAR PERSPECTIVES ON AYURVEDIC THERAPEUTICS: INTEGRATING TRADITIONAL MEDICINE WITH GENOMIC RESEARCH

Abstract

The scientific attention has been growing to Ayurvedic therapeutics in recent years, for their potential applications in precision medicine, systems biology, and integrative healthcare. The current study aimed to explore the molecular aspects of Ayurvedic therapeutics, combining the traditional Ayurvedic concepts of therapeutic approach with the genomic research by transcriptomic and computational bioinformatics. The TCGA-PANCAN transcriptomic data were used to generate a list of differentially expressed genes, signaling pathways with significant enrichment and molecular interaction networks relevant to disease-related biological mechanisms. Differential gene expression analysis revealed some inflammation, oxidative stress regulation, apoptosis, immune modulation and cell proliferation-related dysregulated genes. In the functional enrichment analysis, the NF-κB, PI3K-Akt, MAPK, and cytokine-mediated signaling pathways and the apoptosis pathway were also found to be significantly involved, which are commonly reported as therapeutic mechanisms of Ayurvedic medicinal plants and phytochemicals. The molecular associations between Ayurvedic therapeutics and the key genomic targets were also analyzed through network pharmacology and herb–gene interaction analysis which revealed significant molecular interactions for TP53, AKT1, TNF, IL6, STAT3 and NFKB1. The results indicated the potential of Ayurvedic phytotherapeutics to have multidimensional biological effects through coordinated regulation of interconnected molecular pathways instead of single-target interactions. The present study further underscored the relevance of Ayurgenomics and systems biology to connect traditional knowledge on medicine with the modern scientific research in genomics and personalized medicine. In general, the synergic use of transcriptomics, bioinformatics, and network pharmacology enabled a scientific basis to comprehend the molecular mechanisms of Ayurvedic medicine and its potential application in precision medicine and integrative molecular medicine.