Simulating plant metabolic pathways with enzyme-kinetic models

Abstract

The complexity of metabolic networks and their regulation renders an intuitive analysis of these biological systems a difficult task. Mathematical modeling approaches help to deal with this complexity, making them an important tool for metabolic engineering. Different methods were developed, ranging from basic stoichiometric models up to fine-grained kinetic models. Kinetic modeling is the most detailed and complex mathematical description of a metabolic network and constitutes an important branch in the growing fields of systems biology. In this update, we provide a guide for the construction, simulation, and analysis of kinetic metabolic models in general, before we describe some recently published models of plant metabolic pathways, giving an overview of the opportunities and challenges of this mathematical method. Furthermore, we evaluate the current strategies and take an outlook to possible and necessary future developments of kinetic modeling. © 2010 American Society of Plant Biologists.