Metabolic Flux Analysis in Glutamic Acid Production

Metabolic Flux Analysis in Glutamic Acid Production 

Metabolic flux analysis (MFA) is a powerful tool used in the field of metabolic engineering to understand cellular metabolism and to quantitatively evaluate the effects of metabolic engineering. Metabolic flux is defined as the rate of metabolic reaction per unit cell mass. In MFA, a metabolic reaction model, including the metabolic reactions of interest, that is, equations expressing the material balances of each metabolite of the metabolic reactions, is constructed and the distribution of metabolic fluxes are determined based on the measurement of intracellular and extracellular metabolites [74]. 

Recently, C-labeling experiments have been applied for MFA, known as C-MFA. C-labeled carbon source(s) are incorporated into the cells, and the abundances of in intracellular metabolites are measured by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and/or mass spectrometry. The abundance of in each metabolite reflects how the carbon sources are metabolized. Therefore, the metabolic flux distribution can be estimated from the abundance of in the metabolites. 

This section provides a summary of MFA of glutamic acid production by C. glutamicum. 

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