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Updated: Jul 31, 2025

A Web Tool for Generating High Quality Machine-readable Biological Pathways
Published on: February 8, 2017
CAVE: a cloud-based platform for analysis and visualization of metabolic pathways
Zhitao Mao1,2, Qianqian Yuan1,2, Haoran Li1,2
1Biodesign Center, Key Laboratory of Engineering Biology for Low-Carbon Manufacturing, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianjin 300308, China.
Abstract:
Flux balance analysis (FBA) is an important method for calculating optimal pathways to produce industrially important chemicals in genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs). However, for biologists, the requirement of coding skills poses a significant obstacle to using FBA for pathway analysis and engineering target identification. Additionally, a time-consuming manual drawing process is often needed to illustrate the mass flow in an FBA-calculated pathway, making it challenging to detect errors or discover interesting metabolic features. To solve this problem, we developed CAVE, a cloud-based platform for the integrated calculation, visualization, examination and correction of metabolic pathways. CAVE can analyze and visualize pathways for over 100 published GEMs or user-uploaded GEMs, allowing for quicker examination and identification of special metabolic features in a particular GEM. Additionally, CAVE offers model modification functions, such as gene/reaction removal or addition, making it easy for users to correct errors found in pathway analysis and obtain more reliable pathways. With a focus on the design and analysis of optimal pathways for biochemicals, CAVE complements existing visualization tools based on manually drawn global maps and can be applied to a broader range of organisms for rational metabolic engineering. CAVE is available at https://cave.biodesign.ac.cn/.
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