Hindawi Publishing Corporation Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Volume 2012, Article ID 372670, 13 pages doi:10.1155/2012/372670 Review Article Systems Biology of Meridians, Acupoints, and Chinese Herbs in Disease Li-Ling Lin,1 Ya-Hui Wang,2 Chi-Yu Lai,2 Chan-Lao Chau,3 Guan-Chin Su,4 Chun-Yi Yang,4 Shu-Ying Lou,1 Szu-Kai Chen,5 Kuan-Hao Hsu,5 Yen-Ling Lai,1 Wei-Ming Wu,6 Jian-Long Huang,7 Chih-Hsin Liao,1 and Hsueh-Fen Juan1, 5, 7 1 Department of Life Science, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Section 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei 106, Taiwan 2 Graduate Institute of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei 100, Taiwan 3 Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan 4 Institute of Biochemical Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan 5 Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Section 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei 106, Taiwan 6 Department of Biochemical Science and Technology, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan 7 Graduate Institute of Biomedical Electronic and Bioinformatics, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Section 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei 106, Taiwan Correspondence should be addressed to Hsueh-Fen Juan, yukijuan@ntu.edu.tw Received 2 August 2012; Accepted 26 September 2012 Academic Editor: Wolfgang Schwarz Copyright © 2012 Li-Ling Lin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Meridians, acupoints, and Chinese herbs are important components of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). They have been used for disease treatment and prevention and as alternative and complementary therapies. Systems biology integrates omics data, such as transcriptional, proteomic, and metabolomics data, in order to obtain a more global and complete picture of biological activity. To further understand the existence and functions of the three components above, we reviewed relevant research in the systems biology literature and found many recent studies that indicate the value of acupuncture and Chinese herbs. Acupuncture is useful in pain moderation and relieves various symptoms arising from acute spinal cord injury and acute ischemic stroke. Moreover, Chinese herbal extracts have been linked to wound repair, the alleviation of postmenopausal osteoporosis severity, and anti-tumor eﬀects, among others. Diﬀerent acupoints, variations in treatment duration, and herbal extracts can be used to alleviate various symptoms and conditions and to regulate biological pathways by altering gene and protein expression. Our paper demonstrates how systems biology has helped to establish a platform for investigating the eﬃcacy of TCM in treating diﬀerent diseases and improving treatment strategies. 1. Introduction According to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), acu- points are linked in a network of meridians running along the surface of the body. The meridian system is a special channel network that consists of skin with a high concentration of nerves, various nociceptive receptors, and deeper connective tissues inside the body [1]. Moreover, “qi” (vital energy) in TCM is transferred by meridians, and its ﬂow around the body can reﬂect the health status of individuals [2]. Acupoints are special locations in the body where the “qi” of viscera and meridians infuses and eﬀuses. This phenomenon is thought to be similar to how signals are passed through neural networks. Acupoints are also considered reﬂection points (i.e., points on the body whose reﬂexes provide diagnostic information) for certain diseases and are the targets for clinical acupuncture [3]. Acupuncture is an alternative medicine methodology that originated in ancient China. It uses thin metal needles to pierce through skin into acupoints to regulate the ﬂow of qi around the whole body [4]. Needling at appropriate points can induce eﬀects in locations remote from the insertion