Clinical and molecular evaluation of warming and tonic herb treatment for sibling patients of a typical kidney-yang deficiency family.

It is essential to explore the molecular therapeutic effect of warm and tonic herb treatment for individuals with typical kidney-yang deficiency. In this report, we have identified members of a family with a history of suffering from cold and kidney-yang deficiency syndromes. First, we have employed the accumulated scores of the 40-items clinical scoring indicators for kidney-yang deficiency and cold syndromes to clinically assess the presence or absence of the deficiency for 15 family members. We then proceeded to compare the gene expression profiles of RNA isolated from blood samples, prior to and post-herbal treatment, of a sibling (brother and younger sister) that are suffering from the deficiency using cDNA microarrays with 18816 genes. Following treatments with the warming and tonic herb, the accumulated clinical scores obtained from the 40-items clinical scoring indicators were compared to those obtained pre-treatment. It was observed that the accumulated clinical scores were reduced by 1/3 for the brother and 2/3 for his younger sister following the treatments. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that the level of gene expression for a total of 33 genes at pre-treatment was modulated after treatments with the warming and tonic herb and correlated well with the clinical improvements of their syndromes. These results suggest that the combination of gene profiling and the accumulated clinical scores obtained from the 40-items clinical scoring indicators may provide an accurate clinical assessment and a way to monitor the therapeutic efficacy of the warming and tonic herb treatment.