Modelling cellular metabolism old laces, new pieces and open problems

by Andrea De Martino (CNR, Univ. di Roma, "La Sapienza")

Wednesday 9 Dec 2009, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

EPFL, Salle N. 727 BSP

Metabolic networks control some of the most basic tasks living cells must perform, from energy transduction to growth and reproduction. While relatively hard to access experimentally, they are very well characterized at the biochemical and genetic levels. Still, their overall dynamical organization poses challenging problems of huge practical relevance, ranging from the identification of potential drug targets to the prediction of a cell's response to enzymopathies or environmental shifts. We review the standard computational approaches to modeling metabolism and their limitations. Then we discuss a recently‐introduced theoretical framework that overcomes some of them by allowing to (a) infer cellular objectives and (b) predict reaction fluxes correctly in E.coli. Recent developments regarding human red blood cells are also considered, together with the main open issues. The outlook of the talk is that improving our understanding of the emergence of cellular functions from the metabolic activity requires a better grasp of the *physical* properties of metabolism. Ref.: PNAS 106 2607 (2009)