Computational Approaches in Metabolic Engineering

Metabolic engineering involves the adjustment of metabolic and regulatory processes to improve desired cellular behaviors, such as the production of proteins and chemicals. Since cellular metabolic and regulatory networks are often large and complex, the construction and analysis of computational models of these networks can be useful for identifying current network states and evaluating the effects of network perturbations on desired phenotypes. This special issue includes papers that illustrate how computational approaches can be used in metabolic engineering. Here, we provide a brief overview of several established computational approaches that can be used to aid in the engineering of metabolic networks, while describing some of the exciting recent advances in these fields.