Abstract:

      Metabonomics, an important part of system biology, shows great potential in toxicity or security assessment of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This paper surveys the applications of metabonomics in toxicity impacted target organ, toxicity dosage, action mechanism, biological markers and toxicity substances of TCM. Although metabonomics is still in its developmental stage, it provides new ideas and methods for TCM toxicity or security assessment and a powerful supplement to TCM security assessment.

Key words: metabonomics, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), security assessment, toxicity