Title
Regulation of metabolic networks by small molecule metabolites.
Abstract
The ability to regulate metabolism is a fundamental process in living systems. We present an analysis of one of the mechanisms by which metabolic regulation occurs: enzyme inhibition and activation by small molecules. We look at the network properties of this regulatory system and the relationship between the chemical properties of regulatory molecules.We find that many features of the regulatory network, such as the degree and clustering coefficient, closely match those of the underlying metabolic network. While these global features are conserved across several organisms, we do find local differences between regulation in E. coli and H. sapiens which reflect their different lifestyles. Chemical structure appears to play an important role in determining a compounds suitability for use in regulation. Chemical structure also often determines how groups of similar compounds can regulate sets of enzymes. These groups of compounds and the enzymes they regulate form modules that mirror the modules and pathways of the underlying metabolic network. We also show how knowledge of chemical structure and regulation could be used to predict regulatory interactions for drugs.The metabolic regulatory network shares many of the global properties of the metabolic network, but often varies at the level of individual compounds. Chemical structure is a key determinant in deciding how a compound is used in regulation and for defining modules within the regulatory system.
Year
DOI
Venue
2007
10.1186/1471-2105-8-88
BMC Bioinformatics
Keywords
Field
DocType
chemical structure,clustering coefficient,metabolic network,bioinformatics,microarrays,enzyme,algorithms,chemical properties
Arginase,Biology,Living systems,Cell biology,Metabolic network,Small molecule,Enzyme inhibition,Metabolism,Bioinformatics,DNA microarray
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
8
1
1471-2105
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
18
0.87
7
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Alex Gutteridge12107.41
Minoru Kanehisa24429707.80
Susumu Goto33213541.48