Artificial intelligence empowering polysaccharide research in drug development

Abstract

Polysaccharides, together with proteins and nucleic acids, are typically considered the three fundamental macromolecules essential for life. Unlike well-studied proteins and nucleic acids, polysaccharides remain poorly characterized. Their inherent structural heterogeneity makes them particularly challenging to study with conventional techniques. Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative technology in driving the paradigm shift of polysaccharide research to data-driven intelligence, thereby enabling efficient analysis of extensive data. Herein, we systematically review AI applications in polysaccharide research, mainly focusing on various stages in polysaccharide drug development. The limitations and outlooks are discussed as well, following the review of the advantages of AI in this field.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB0830300 to Cheng Luo), Science and Technology Department of Guizhou Province (Grant No. [2024]015), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (YDZX20233100004032 to Cheng Luo, 24JS2830200, 25JS2830300, 25ZR1402556 to Heng Xu), the Applied Basic Research Foundation of Yunnan Province (202501BC070005), and the project of National Multidisciplinary Innovation Team of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ZYYCXTD-D-202004 to Cheng Luo).

Ethical statements

Not applicable.

Author contributions

The authors confirm contributions to the review as follows: conception and design: Xu H, Luo C; draft manuscript preparation: Yu J, Liu N. All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Data availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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