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Composite control of cell function: metabolic pathways behaving as single control units
Author(s) -
Kholodenko Boris N.,
Schuster Stefan,
Rohwer Johann M.,
Cascante Marta,
Westerhoff Hans V.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/0014-5793(95)00562-n
Subject(s) - metabolic pathway , flux (metallurgy) , metabolic control analysis , metabolic network , enzyme , control (management) , pathway analysis , function (biology) , chemistry , control theory (sociology) , biochemistry , biological system , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , computer science , gene , gene expression , endocrinology , organic chemistry , artificial intelligence , insulin
This paper shows that under some conditions the control exerted by a part of a metabolic network (a pathway) on a flux or concentration in any other part can be described through a single (overall) control coefficient. This has the following implications: (i) the relative contributions of a pathway enzyme to the regulation of the pathway (output) flux and of any flux or concentration outside are identical; therefore, the control analysis of the pathway ‘in isolation’ allows one to determine the control exerted by any pathway enzyme on the rest of the cell by estimation of the control efficient of just one, arbitrarily chosen enzyme; (ii) the relative control of any two metabolic variables outside the pathway (measured as the ratio of the control coefficients over these two variables outside) is the same for all pathway enzymes. These properties allow one to substitute effectively a pathway by a single (super)reaction and make it possible to consider such a pathway as a metabolic unit within the cellular enzyme network.