Metabolic Network Analysis Demystified

Abstract

Metabolic networks are a representation of current knowledge about the metabolic reactions available to a given organism. These networks can be placed into various mathematical frameworks, of which the constraintbased framework [1] has received the most attention over the past 15 years. This results in a predictive model of metabolism. Metabolic models can yield predictions of two types: quantitative, such as the growth rate of an organism under given experimental conditions [2], and qualitative, such as the viability of a mutant [3] or minimal media required for growth [4]. Qualitative predictions, on which we focus, tend to be more robust and reliable than quantitative ones, while remaining experimentally testable and biologically relevant.