A practical guide for exploring opportunities of repurposing drugs for CNS diseases in systems biology

Abstract

Systems biology has shown its potential in facilitating pathway-focused therapy development for central nervous system (CNS) diseases. An integrated network can be utilized to explore the multiple disease mechanisms and to discover repositioning opportunities. This review covers current therapeutic gaps for CNS diseases and the role of systems biology in pharmaceutical industry. We conclude with a Multiple Level Network Modeling (MLNM) example to illustrate the great potential of systems biology for CNS diseases. The system focuses on the benefit and practical applications in pathway centric therapy and drug repositioning.