Systems Biology Application in Research on Sustainable Utilization of Chinese Materia Medica Resources

This paper reviews the progress of systems biology applied to researching on sustainable utilization of Chinese materia medica (CMM) resources in the following aspects: identification and evaluation of CMM resources, analysis of biosynthesis and their regulation of active ingredients in medicinal plants, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology research of medicinal plants, and molecular breeding of medicinal plants. Development of systems biology is currently leading to extremely broad applications in the field of CMM resources, and systems biology will become a significant approach for the sustainable utilization of CMM resources.