Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China.
College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China.
Sci China Life Sci. 2021 Sep;64(9):1392-1422. doi: 10.1007/s11427-020-1910-1. Epub 2021 Mar 12.
In multicellular and even single-celled organisms, individual components are interconnected at multiscale levels to produce enormously complex biological networks that help these systems maintain homeostasis for development and environmental adaptation. Systems biology studies initially adopted network analysis to explore how relationships between individual components give rise to complex biological processes. Network analysis has been applied to dissect the complex connectivity of mammalian brains across different scales in time and space in The Human Brain Project. In plant science, network analysis has similarly been applied to study the connectivity of plant components at the molecular, subcellular, cellular, organic, and organism levels. Analysis of these multiscale networks contributes to our understanding of how genotype determines phenotype. In this review, we summarized the theoretical framework of plant multiscale networks and introduced studies investigating plant networks by various experimental and computational modalities. We next discussed the currently available analytic methodologies and multi-level imaging techniques used to map multiscale networks in plants. Finally, we highlighted some of the technical challenges and key questions remaining to be addressed in this emerging field.
在多细胞甚至单细胞生物中，单个组件在多尺度水平上相互连接，形成极其复杂的生物网络，帮助这些系统在发育和环境适应过程中维持内稳态。系统生物学研究最初采用网络分析来探索个体组件之间的关系如何产生复杂的生物学过程。网络分析已被应用于在“人类大脑计划”中对不同时空尺度的哺乳动物大脑的复杂连通性进行剖析。在植物科学中，网络分析也被应用于研究分子、亚细胞、细胞、器官和生物体水平的植物组件的连通性。对这些多尺度网络的分析有助于我们理解基因型如何决定表型。在这篇综述中，我们总结了植物多尺度网络的理论框架，并介绍了通过各种实验和计算模式研究植物网络的研究。接下来，我们讨论了目前用于绘制植物多尺度网络的分析方法和多层次成像技术。最后，我们强调了在这个新兴领域中仍然存在的一些技术挑战和关键问题。
