Table 3.
Application of biotechnology in pharmaceutical product analysis.
| Techniques | Characteristic | Application |
|---|---|---|
| Toxicity analysis | ||
| Network toxicology | Multiple gene and target | Hepatotoxicity analysis of esculentoside A98 |
| Transcriptomics | Most widely used; high sensitivity; high resolution | The potential toxic components and hepatotoxic targets analysis of vine tea121 |
| Proteomics | High sensitivity; high resolution | The toxicities analysis of Herba Lysimachiae123 |
| Metabolomics | High sensitivity; high resolution | Toxic components related to drug-induced liver injury of Heshouwu127 |
| Mass spectrometry imaging technology | High sensitivity; Visual | The damage to liver cell of acetaminophen217 |
| Transgenic animal | Humanized; rapid large-scale screening | Drug reaction analysis of abacavir in HLA mice103 |
| Disease model animal | Short life, low cost, and efficient reproduction | The cardiotoxicity analysis of four typical MALs108 |
| Immunofluorescence and its derivative | High specificity, sensitivity, and speed | Evaluation the side effects of hydrazide drugs116 |
| Flow cytometry | Speed-up, high precision, good accuracy | The cytotoxicity of Drosophila ginsenoside119 |
| Effectiveness analysis | ||
| Target-based biosensors | High sensitivity, low cost, excellent practicability | Early identification of designer drugs of abuse, the development of 5-HT2AR-dependent non-hallucinogenic therapeutics139,141,142 |
| 3D-biological printing organoid | Self-organizing, self-renewing, physiologically relevant, automatic, economic | Dynamic and combinatorial drug screening, personalized drug delivery, assessment in tumor patient-derived organoid-like models144,147,150,151 |
| Microfluidic-combined organ-on-a-chip | Low consumption of reagents, rapid actuation and response | Drug potency evaluation, application at the cell, tissue, and organ levels, analysis of the molecular process in various enteropathies153,159,218 |
| Omics-based artificial intelligence | Improved the efficiency and accuracy, no requirement of clinical trials with low costs | Discovery of innovative drugs, identification of bioactive components in natural medicines166,167 |
| Quality controllability analysis | ||
| DNA mini-barcoding | Accurate for natural products preparation | Angelica sinensis, Panax notoginseng170,174 |
| DNA meta-barcoding | Use universal PCR primers to identify multiple species | Jiuwei Qianghuo Wan |
| Single nucleotide polymorphism | Short DNA sequence unique to a species, highly conserved, rapidly | Ginseng products in Chinese patent medicines |
| DNA melting analysis | Sensitivity, avoids sequencing | Rhizoma Paridis Herrmann170 |
| Electronic tongue | Fast and simple | Taste masking |
| Luciferase reporter transfected cell lines | Highly related to pharmacological effect | Differentiate Huangqin Tang preparations, Uraria crinita, Ephedrae Herba and Astragali Radix |
| COX-2 inhibitor; iNOS activity | Fast and simple | |
| Thrombosis model | Easy for observation, rapid and high-throughput, holistic effect | Distinguish XST; Q-marker identification200 |
| Oxidative stress | Low number of somatic cells; evolution of each cell | Distinguish Ganoderma lucidum quality |
| Chip with enzyme/cells | Automation of operation, more repeatable than cell-based models | Evaluate the quality of Qishen Yiqi Pill from different batches |
| Intestine/liver/kidney | Reducing time and cost of drug development, high-throughput | Pharmacokinetic parameters153,154,218 |