WellGreen-i Co., Ltd.

– Capture key information quickly and accurately through WGI’s AI text mining technologies (A2K/LA2K) –

◆ In the following descriptions, the letter following each “Task” (e.g., Task A) corresponds to the codes (A–Q) listed under “Outsourcing task(s)” in the Contact Us form.

◆High-Speed, High-Precision, and High-Throughput Literature Survey
― Accelerating the understanding of complex biological phenomena involving a many kinds of genes, compounds, and growth-related environmental factors by conducting complicated literature surveys with AI ―

Routine literature surveys are extremely effective and indispensable methods in research activities.
The amount of information available in journals and papers accessible to researchers is enormous.
Academic fields and journals have become increasingly specialized, making it difficult to read and understand papers from other disciplines, even if they contain relevant information.
Time, personnel and financial resources available for literature surveys are limited.

If literature surveys are conducted with high speed and high precision, the time and effort previously spent on surveys can be redirected toward project advancement.

◆WGI’s Proprietary High-Throughput Literature Survey Service for Life Sciences Field (Task B)
― A2K / LA2K Technology ―

WGI has established the AI text-mining technology (A2K), which automatically conducts high-precision and large-scale literature surveys by computational processing in order to collect key information.
Furthermore, WGI has developed the LA2K technology specialized for the life sciences field, which realizes automatic extraction of gene-related information described in the literature.
Instead of researchers, AI collects, summarizes, and outputs the key information from big data of web and literature sources.
Knowledge information that author groups have obtained from peer-reviewed papers is comprehensively aggregated.
A2K/LA2K technology enables to automatically extract A2K Descriptions that relate to genes, compounds, metabolism, traits, and environmental responses etc. (key terms) from a large number of documents.

Details on A2K Technology (Article to Knowledge Technology) and A2K Description are available here.

Notes on Automatically Collected and Analyzed Information in This Contracted Service

Automatically collected and analyzed web and literature information is limited to freely accessible content.
Since key conclusions of research papers are included in freely accessible abstracts, it is possible to obtain sufficient knowledge information from abstract big data.
Freely accessible full-text papers can also be included in the analysis.
If it is necessary to extract key information from other types of text content, please contact us for further consultation.

◆WGI’s Proprietary Knowledge Information Collection and Summarization Service Using A2K/LA2K Technology

Enhancing the efficiency and precision of collecting knowledge information in the life sciences field in terms of time, effort, cost, and accuracy.

◆Aggregation of Knowledge Information in the Life Sciences Using A2K Technology

WGI has developed AI text mining technology (A2K technology : Article to Knowledge Technology) that enables automated, high-precision, large-scale literature surveys for collecting key information, and provides information collection services based on big data.

Benefits of Applying A2K Technology to Literature Surveys in the Life Sciences Field

key terms can be freely set according to project focus areas (e.g., viral resistance, breast cancer suppression genes, unsaturated fatty acid content, flowering control).

◆Development of LA2K Technology: A2K Technology Cannot Comprehensively Collect Gene Information

In A2K analysis, it can be difficult to comprehensively aggregate gene information when using gene names as key terms.

Different names (synonyms) may be assigned to the same gene, and the name used can vary between publications.
A2K technology collects information only on the terms (gene names) specified as key terms.
Therefore, when aiming to collect functional information on a group of genes, it is necessary to list all known synonyms as key terms.
However, since new synonyms continue to emerge with the publication of new papers, listing all of them is practically impossible.

To solve this problem, WGI has developed Life Science A2K (LA2K) technology, which automatically recognizes gene names appearing in the text of papers and outputs their A2K Descriptions.

◆LA2K Technology: AI-Based Automatic Recognition of Gene Names in Text

LA2K technology is equipped with AI capabilities that automatically recognize gene names appearing in text.

Using LA2K technology, gene information described in text can be comprehensively and automatically extracted.
By applying LA2K analysis to peer-reviewed papers containing conclusions (derived knowledge) derived through research and discussion, knowledge information on genes can be obtained.
Since LA2K technology is processed by a computer, there are notations (e.g., names consisting only of numbers) that cannot be recognized as gene names.
The accuracy of gene name recognition by LA2K technology is expected to improve further through the accumulation of analytical data and refinement of its algorithms.

◆Example of Analysis Using LA2K Technology

For example, the following shows the result of applying LA2K technology to four key terms (Breast Cancer, Gene Expression Profiling, Microarray Analysis, and Estrogen Receptor alpha).

An example of LA2K analysis using terms: Breast Cancer, Gene Expression Profiling, Microarray Analysis, Estrogen Receptor alpha

Gene names automatically recognized in text by LA2K analysis are listed under the “Gene name” column in the table.
A2K Descriptions containing the automatically recognized gene names are output.
Of course, A2K Descriptions related to the key terms are also output (these results are not included in this table).

In this way, by utilizing LA2K technology, the computer can recognize gene names as gene names just like a human expert reading papers, allowing information on genes to be automatically extracted even if neither the researcher nor the computer knows the gene names in advance.

Source: Yano K, Imai K, Shimizu A, Hanashita T., Nucleic Acids Research. 2006 Mar 14;34(5):1532–9., DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkl058 / PMID: 16537840
Parts of the text have been reconstructed as case studies of syntactic analysis, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) used under license.

◆Advantages and Future Prospects of LA2K

◆Acquisition of Gene Function Information: LA2K Technology vs. Conventional Methods

In general, similarity analysis of DNA/amino acid sequences is widely used for gene function prediction. Sequence similarity information is useful for studies such as molecular evolution and mutation analysis, but it is not appropriate to use it as a primary basis for predicting gene function. In order to extract gene function information with high reliability, literature surveys are the most effective approach.

◆High-Efficiency and High-Precision Knowledge Aggregation Unachievable by Traditional Manual Reviews through A2K/LA2K Technology
― Liberation from the Enormous Time and Effort Required for Literature Surveys ―

Although LA2K is an AI-based analytical technology and does not guarantee the same accuracy as manual literature reviews conducted by domain experts, it offers several advantages that make it a powerful tool for advancing life science research.

Advantages of Utilizing LA2K Technology

The entire process from literature search and collection to comprehension and extraction of knowledge information (findings) related to the key terms and genes is automated.
Researchers can process a large volume of literature simply by inputting key terms into the LA2K system.
Knowledge information (findings) can be obtained with high precision in a short amount of time.
Articles in specialized fields that are difficult for researchers to comprehend can also be included in the survey.
A vast number of publications can be processed in a short amount of time.
Researchers are liberated from the substantial time, effort, and cost typically required for daily literature surveys.
Researchers can focus on advancing their projects, enabling shorter timeframes for achieving goals and enhancing the quality of results.

LA2K technology will become an extremely powerful tool in many research, development, and business settings.

◆Integration of A2K/LA2K Analysis Results with Omics Data to Accelerate the Identification of Target Factors such as Genes

By integrating LA2K analysis results with information on transcription factors and cis-elements, gene expression data, and homolog information (gene families) within and across species, it is possible to maximize the information base for elucidating the molecular mechanisms of various biological processes, thereby accelerating the achievement of research goals.

◆Features of A2K/LA2K Technology

Simply by specifying key terms, the entire series of steps from literature search to knowledge information compilation can be executed seamlessly and in a short time.

A vast amount of text information (numerous documents) related to the key terms can be collectively gathered and summarized.

The amount of text that experts need toread and comprehend themselves can be significantly reduced.

Literature outside the researcher’s own specialty, which cannot be efficiently handled by manual reviews, can also be processed: medicine, pharmacy, basic biology, agriculture, bioinformatics, patents, and many other fields。

There is no limit to the number of key terms used for A2K analysis.

A2K analysis is conducted on English texts.

By utilizing automatic translation tools, Japanese texts and others can also be analyzed (note that the accuracy of translation affects the precision of summarization).