Figure 1. Illustration of two modes of interaction between ingredients and targets.

C1 and C2 denote two chemical compounds under investigation. T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T_x and T_y denote different proteins, among which T_x and T_y are the targets that are directly related to the disease. (a) C1 has direct interaction with four proteins, one of which is the disease-related target T_x; (b) C2 interacts with T4, T5 and T6, which further manipulates the disease-related targets T_x or T_y.