A Nash Equilibrium approach to metabolic network analysis

Abstract

A novel approach to metabolic network analysis using a Nash Equilibrium formulation is proposed. Enzymes are considered to be players in a multi-player game in which each player attempts to minimize the dimensionless Gibbs free energy associated with the biochemical reaction(s) it catalyzes subject to elemental mass balances. Mathematical formulation of the metabolic network as a set of nonlinear programming (NLP) sub-problems and appropriate solution methodologies are described. A small example representing part of the production cycle for acetyl-CoA is used to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed Nash Equilibrium framework and show that it represents a paradigm shift in metabolic network analysis.