Bioinformatics-assisted, integrated omics studies on medicinal plants

Area of Science:

• * Agricultural Science
• * Bioinformatics
• * Plant Science

Background:

• * Medicinal plants possess significant therapeutic and economic value, driving global research interest.
• * Ensuring the authenticity and quality of herbal drugs is essential for the traditional medicine industry's growth.
• * Standardization of plant materials and bioengineering of metabolic pathways are key research priorities.

Purpose of the Study:

• * To summarize recent advances in omics studies (phenomics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics) for medicinal plants.
• * To propose a multi-omics data-based workflow for medicinal plant research.
• * To highlight the importance of integrating omics data for plant authentication and metabolic pathway elucidation.

Main Methods:

• * Comprehensive review of recent omics studies in medicinal plants.
• * Development of a multi-omics data integration workflow.
• * Introduction of computational tools for omics data management and analysis.

Main Results:

• * A workflow integrating phenomics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics is proposed.
• * Multi-omics data integration is vital for accurate medicinal plant authentication and mechanistic studies.
• * Genomic and metabolomic markers enhance authentication, while functional genomics aids pathway discovery.

Conclusions:

• * The proposed workflow facilitates standardized authentication and bioengineering of medicinal plants.
• * Integrated omics approaches, supported by bioinformatics, are essential for advancing medicinal plant research.
• * This framework aims to inspire further research in bioinformatics-assisted, integrated omics studies for medicinal plants.