Paper Info
Title
Impact of the solvent capacity constraint on E. coli metabolism
Abstract
Obtaining quantitative predictions for cellular metabolic activities requires the identification and modeling of the physicochemical constraints that are relevant at physiological growth conditions. Molecular crowding in a cell's cytoplasm is one such potential constraint, as it limits the solvent capacity available to metabolic enzymes.Using a recently introduced flux balance modeling framework (FBAwMC) here we demonstrate that this constraint determines a metabolic switch in E. coli cells when they are shifted from low to high growth rates. The switch is characterized by a change in effective optimization strategy, the excretion of acetate at high growth rates, and a global reorganization of E. coli metabolic fluxes, the latter being partially confirmed by flux measurements of central metabolic reactions.These results implicate the solvent capacity as an important physiological constraint acting on E. coli cells operating at high metabolic rates and for the activation of a metabolic switch when they are shifted from low to high growth rates. The relevance of this constraint in the context of both the aerobic ethanol excretion seen in fast growing yeast cells (Crabtree effect) and the aerobic glycolysis observed in rapidly dividing cancer cells (Warburg effect) should be addressed in the future.
Year
DOI
Venue
2008
10.1186/1752-0509-2-7
BMC Systems Biology
Keywords
Field
DocType
algorithms,enzyme,metabolic rate,systems biology,intracellular space,bioinformatics,escherichia coli
Enzyme,Biology,Cytoplasm,Cell biology,Systems biology,Metabolism,Bioinformatics,Solvent,Flux balance analysis
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
2
1
1752-0509
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
20
3.59
2
Authors
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Alexei Vazquez1559.84
Qasim K Beg29810.00
marcio a demenezes3203.59
Jason Ernst422413.02
Ziv Bar-Joseph51207112.00
Albert-lászló Barabási646491107.35
László G Boros7203.59
Zoltan N Oltvai8738.81