Metabolic network analysis thermodynamic constraint

Despite its widely recognized limitations, flux balance analysis has resulted in a large number of successful applications [35, 67, 72 74], including several extensions and refinements. See Ref. [247] for a recent review. Of particular interest are recent efforts to augment the stoichiometric balance equations with thermodynamic constraints providing a link between concentration and flux in the constraint-based analysis of metabolic networks [74, 149, 150]. For a more comprehensive review, we refer to the very readable monograph of Palsson [50]. 

A. Hoppe, S. Hoffmann, and H. G. Holzhiitter, Including metabolite concentrations into flux balance analysis Thermodynamic realizability as a constraint on flux distributions in metabolic networks. BMC Syst. Biol. 1, 23 (2007). 

Introducing the chemical potential (or free energy) and the thermodynamic constraint provides a solid physical chemistry foundation for the constraint-based analysis approach to metabolic systems analysis. Treatment of the network thermodynamics not only improves the accuracy of the predictions on the steady state fluxes, but can also be used to make predictions on the steady state concentrations of metabolites. To see this, we substitute the relation between reaction Gibbs free energy (ArG ) of the th reaction and the concentrations of biochemical reactants... 

Metabolic networks can be quantitatively and qualitatively studied without enzyme kinetic parameters by using a constraints-based approach. Metabolic networks must obey the fundamental physicochemical laws, such as mass, energy, redox balances, diffusion, and thermodynamics. Therefore, when kinetic constants are unavailable, cellular function can still be mathematically constrained based on the mass and energy balance. Flux balance analysis (FBA) is a mathematical modeling framework that can be used to study the steady-state metabolic capabilities of cell-based physicochemical constraints. ... 

Analysis of biochemical systems, with their behaviors constrained by the known system stoichiometry, falls under the broad heading constraint-based analysis, a methodology that allows us to explore computationally metabolic fluxes and concentrations constrained by the physical chemical laws of mass conservation and thermodynamics. This chapter introduces the mathematical formulation of the constraints on reaction fluxes and reactant concentrations that arise from the stoichiometry of an integrated network and are the basis of constraint-based analysis. 

---