1.Determining the biomarkers and pathogenesis of myocardial infarction combined with ankylosing spondylitis via a systems biology approach.
Chunying LIU ; Chengfei PENG ; Xiaodong JIA ; Chenghui YAN ; Dan LIU ; Xiaolin ZHANG ; Haixu SONG ; Yaling HAN
Frontiers of Medicine 2025;19(3):507-522
Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is linked to an increased prevalence of myocardial infarction (MI). However, research dedicated to elucidating the pathogenesis of AS-MI is lacking. In this study, we explored the biomarkers for enhancing the diagnostic and therapeutic efficiency of AS-MI. Datasets were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. We employed weighted gene co-expression network analysis and machine learning models to screen hub genes. A receiver operating characteristic curve and a nomogram were designed to assess diagnostic accuracy. Gene set enrichment analysis was conducted to reveal the potential function of hub genes. Immune infiltration analysis indicated the correlation between hub genes and the immune landscape. Subsequently, we performed single-cell analysis to identify the expression and subcellular localization of hub genes. We further constructed a transcription factor (TF)-microRNA (miRNA) regulatory network. Finally, drug prediction and molecular docking were performed. S100A12 and MCEMP1 were identified as hub genes, which were correlated with immune-related biological processes. They exhibited high diagnostic value and were predominantly expressed in myeloid cells. Furthermore, 24 TFs and 9 miRNA were associated with these hub genes. Enzastaurin, meglitinide, and nifedipine were predicted as potential therapeutic agents. Our study indicates that S100A12 and MCEMP1 exhibit significant potential as biomarkers and therapeutic targets for AS-MI, offering novel insights into the underlying etiology of this condition.
Humans
;
Spondylitis, Ankylosing/complications*
;
Systems Biology/methods*
;
Myocardial Infarction/diagnosis*
;
Biomarkers/metabolism*
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MicroRNAs/genetics*
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Gene Regulatory Networks
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Gene Expression Profiling
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Machine Learning
2.Databases, knowledge bases, and large models for biomanufacturing.
Zhitao MAO ; Xiaoping LIAO ; Hongwu MA
Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2025;41(3):901-916
Biomanufacturing is an advanced manufacturing method that integrates biology, chemistry, and engineering. It utilizes renewable biomass and biological organisms as production media to scale up the production of target products through fermentation. Compared with petrochemical routes, biomanufacturing offers significant advantages in reducing CO2 emissions, lowering energy consumption, and cutting costs. With the development of systems biology and synthetic biology and the accumulation of bioinformatics data, the integration of information technologies such as artificial intelligence, large models, and high-performance computing with biotechnology is propelling biomanufacturing into a data-driven era. This paper reviews the latest research progress on databases, knowledge bases, and large language models for biomanufacturing. It explores the development directions, challenges, and emerging technical methods in this field, aiming to provide guidance and inspiration for scientific research in related areas.
Biotechnology/methods*
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Knowledge Bases
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Synthetic Biology
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Databases, Factual
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Artificial Intelligence
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Systems Biology
;
Computational Biology
;
Fermentation
3.Artificial intelligence-assisted design, mining, and modification of CRISPR-Cas systems.
Yufeng MAO ; Guangyun CHU ; Qingling LIANG ; Ye LIU ; Yi YANG ; Xiaoping LIAO ; Meng WANG
Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2025;41(3):949-967
With the rapid advancement of synthetic biology, CRISPR-Cas systems have emerged as a powerful tool for gene editing, demonstrating significant potential in various fields, including medicine, agriculture, and industrial biotechnology. This review comprehensively summarizes the significant progress in applying artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to the design, mining, and modification of CRISPR-Cas systems. AI technologies, especially machine learning, have revolutionized sgRNA design by analyzing high-throughput sequencing data, thereby improving the editing efficiency and predicting off-target effects with high accuracy. Furthermore, this paper explores the role of AI in sgRNA design and evaluation, highlighting its contributions to the annotation and mining of CRISPR arrays and Cas proteins, as well as its potential for modifying key proteins involved in gene editing. These advancements have not only improved the efficiency and precision of gene editing but also expanded the horizons of genome engineering, paving the way for intelligent and precise genome editing.
CRISPR-Cas Systems/genetics*
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Artificial Intelligence
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Gene Editing/methods*
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RNA, Guide, CRISPR-Cas Systems/genetics*
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Machine Learning
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Humans
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Genetic Engineering/methods*
;
Synthetic Biology
4.Advances in reconstruction and optimization of cellular physiological metabolic network models.
Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2025;41(3):1112-1132
The metabolic reactions in cells, whether spontaneous or enzyme-catalyzed, form a highly complex metabolic network closely related to cellular physiological metabolic activities. The reconstruction of cellular physiological metabolic network models aids in systematically elucidating the relationship between genotype and growth phenotype, providing important computational biology tools for precisely characterizing cellular physiological metabolic activities and green biomanufacturing. This paper systematically introduces the latest research progress in different types of cellular physiological metabolic network models, including genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs), kinetic models, and enzyme-constrained genome-scale metabolic models (ecGEMs). Additionally, our paper discusses the advancements in the automated construction of GEMs and strategies for condition-specific GEM modeling. Considering artificial intelligence offers new opportunities for the high-precision construction of cellular physiological metabolic network models, our paper summarizes the applications of artificial intelligence in the development of kinetic models and enzyme-constrained models. In summary, the high-quality reconstruction of the aforementioned cellular physiological metabolic network models will provide robust computational support for future research in quantitative synthetic biology and systems biology.
Metabolic Networks and Pathways/physiology*
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Models, Biological
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Artificial Intelligence
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Systems Biology
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Kinetics
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Cell Physiological Phenomena
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Computational Biology
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Synthetic Biology
;
Humans
5.Application and development of systems biology in computer-aided drug design.
Yu-Qing WANG ; Kong-Fa HU ; Chen-Jun HU
China Journal of Chinese Materia Medica 2023;48(11):2868-2875
With the advances in medicine, people have deeply understood the complex pathogenesis of diseases. Revealing the mechanism of action and therapeutic effect of drugs from an overall perspective has become the top priority of drug design. However, the traditional drug design methods cannot meet the current needs. In recent years, with the rapid development of systems biology, a variety of new technologies including metabolomics, genomics, and proteomics have been used in drug research and development. As a bridge between traditional pharmaceutical theory and modern science, computer-aided drug design(CADD) can shorten the drug development cycle and improve the success rate of drug design. The application of systems biology and CADD provides a methodological basis and direction for revealing the mechanism and action of drugs from an overall perspective. This paper introduces the research and application of systems biology in CADD from different perspectives and proposes the development direction, providing reference for promoting the application.
Humans
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Systems Biology
;
Drug Design
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Drug Development
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Genomics
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Medicine
6.Graph-based and constraint-based heterologous metabolic pathway design methods and application.
Wentong YU ; Qianqian YUAN ; Hongwu MA ; Zhiwen WANG
Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2022;38(4):1390-1407
It is among the goals in metabolic engineering to construct microbial cell factories producing high-yield and high value-added target products, and an important solution is to design efficient synthetic pathway for the target products. However, due to the difference in metabolic capacity among microbial chassises, the available substrate and the yielded products are limited. Therefore, it is urgent to design related metabolic pathways to improve the production capacity. Existing metabolic engineering approaches to designing heterologous pathways are mainly based on biological experience, which are inefficient. Moreover, the yielded results are in no way comprehensive. However, systems biology provides new methods for heterologous pathway design, particularly the graph-based and constraint-based methods. Based on the databases containing rich metabolism information, they search for and uncover possible metabolic pathways with designated strategy (graph-based method) or algorithm (constraint-based method) and then screen out the optimal pathway to guide the modification of strains. In this paper, we reviewed the databases and algorithms for pathway design, and the applications in metabolic engineering and discussed the strengths and weaknesses of existing algorithms in practical application, hoping to provide a reference for the selection of optimal methods for the design of product synthesis pathway.
Algorithms
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Biosynthetic Pathways
;
Metabolic Engineering
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Metabolic Networks and Pathways/genetics*
;
Systems Biology
7.Thirty years development of metabolic engineering: a review.
Tao CHEN ; Zhenzhen CUI ; Wenya HU ; Zhiwen WANG ; Xueming ZHAO
Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2021;37(5):1477-1493
Since its establishment 30 years ago, the discipline of metabolic engineering has developed rapidly based on its deep integration with molecular biology, systems biology and synthetic biology successively, which has greatly contributed to advancing and upgrading biotechnology industry. This review firstly analyzes the current status of academic research and China's competence in the area of metabolic engineering according to the data of papers published in SCI-indexed journals in the past 30 years. Subsequently, the article summarizes the development of systems biology methods and enabling technologies of synthetic biology and their applications in metabolic engineering in the past 10 years. Finally, the major challenges and future perspectives for the development of metabolic engineering are briefly discussed.
Biotechnology
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Industry
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Metabolic Engineering
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Synthetic Biology
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Systems Biology
8.An evolving and flourishing metabolic engineering.
Chinese Journal of Biotechnology 2021;37(5):1494-1509
In 1990s, Bailey and Stephanopoulos put forward the concept of classic metabolic engineering, aiming to use DNA recombination technology to rewire metabolic network to achieve improved cell performance and increased target products. In the last 30 years since the birth of metabolic engineering, life science have flourished, and new disciplines such as genomics, systems biology and synthetic biology have emerged, injecting new connotations and vitality into the development of metabolic engineering. Classic metabolic engineering research has entered into an unprecedented stage of systems metabolic engineering. The application of synthetic biology tools and strategies, such as omics technology, genomic-scale metabolic model, parts assembly, circuits design, dynamic control, genome editing and many others, have greatly improved the design, build, and rewiring capabilities of complex metabolism. The intervention of machine learning and the combination of evolutionary engineering and metabolic engineering will further promote the development of systems metabolic engineering. This paper analyzes the development of metabolic engineering in the past 30 years and summarizes the novel theories, techniques, strategies, and applications of metabolic engineering that have emerged over the past 30 years.
Gene Editing
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Metabolic Engineering
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Metabolic Networks and Pathways/genetics*
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Synthetic Biology
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Systems Biology
9.Discussion on Relevance and Studies of Prescription Compatibility in Chinese Medicine.
Loh Cheng Toa STEVEN ; Goh Xin YI
Chinese journal of integrative medicine 2021;27(10):788-793
With Chinese medicine (CM) gaining popularity in recent years, researchers and clinicians have put in much interest and effort into the makings and effects of it, especially after the recent announcement of World Health Orgnitation's incorporation of CM into mainstream medical compendium. Individual herb has complex properties, coming from its pharmacological properties and the Chinese medical principles of organ-directed, taste and dynamic orientational behaviours. The use of individual herb in CM is rare, where various herbs/ingredients are mostly found in a prescribed formula. To fully reveal the effects of CM is a great challenge. The complexity of various herbs in combined effect, the absorption and utility rate by the body, uniqueness of individual physique, sub-types of pathological behaviors and time-line progression of the healing process add on to the complication of understanding the full effect of CM. Various theories such as pathophysiology guidance, pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic compatibility method, and Global Systems Biology for Integrative Genomics, Proteomics and Metabolomics, which interactively provide a wider scope, more details, with the consideration of development timeline, may shed more light to revealing the full picture of the effects of compatibility prescription.
Drugs, Chinese Herbal/pharmacology*
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Medicine, Chinese Traditional
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Prescriptions
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Systems Biology
10.Metabonomics research strategy based on microdialysis technique.
Ying-Feng ZHANG ; Xing-Xing HUANG ; Li-Xia ZHU
China Journal of Chinese Materia Medica 2020;45(1):214-220
Metabonomics is the branch of systems biology. It has been widely used in the fields of diagnostic markers discovery, disease prognosis, drug action mechanism, drug efficacy and toxicity evaluation, traditional Chinese medicine syndromes differentiation. There are shortcomings in the conventional metabonomics research. Microdialysis technology is a new type of biosampling technology, and metabonomics research based on microdialysis technology is in the ascendant. In view of the particularity of microdialysis technology and its great differences from traditional sampling and pretreatment methods, the metabonomics process based on microdialysis technology has certain similarities with traditional metabonomics research, and its basic process has some particularity. Advantages and basic strategies of metabonomics research by microdialysis technology are systematically summarized for researchers' reference.
Medicine, Chinese Traditional
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Metabolomics
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Microdialysis
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Research Design
;
Systems Biology

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