Fluxome profiling in microbes

Abstract

Similar to the readout from transcriptome and proteome analyses, comprehensive detection of intracellular metabolite levels, the metabolome, assesses metabolic network composition. In sharp contrast to such concentration measurements, quantification of fluxes between metabolites is a very different type of analysis that provides time-dependent information on metabolic network operation. Flux responses to environmental perturbations in the range of seconds or minutes are largely driven by kinetic regulation, which, in turn, is a function of metabolite concentrations and kinetic properties of the involved enzymes. On longer time-scales - in genetic variants or during growth in a given environment - flux responses result from both genetic and metabolic regulation. Quantification of molecular fluxes thus provides a direct link to the interactions between genes, proteins, and metabolites, where the actually observed flux distribution reflects the integration of all occurring regulation processes in the network (Bailey 1999; Hellerstein 2003). © 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. All rights reserved.