Opportunities at the interface of network science and metabolic modelling

TL;DR

This paper explores the integration of flux balance analysis and network science to better understand genome-scale metabolic systems, with implications for science, medicine, and industry.

Contribution

It discusses the complementary use of FBA and network science for analyzing complex metabolic models, highlighting their combined potential.

Findings

Integration of FBA and network science offers new insights into metabolic system structure.

Combining approaches can improve understanding of cell responses to perturbations.

Potential applications in precision medicine and biotechnology.

Abstract

Metabolism plays a central role in cell physiology because it provides the molecular machinery for growth. At the genome-scale, metabolism is made up of thousands of reactions interacting with one another. Untangling this complexity is key to understand how cells respond to genetic, environmental, or therapeutic perturbations. Here we discuss the roles of two complementary strategies for the analysis of genome-scale metabolic models: Flux Balance Analysis (FBA) and network science. While FBA estimates metabolic flux on the basis of an optimisation principle, network approaches reveal emergent properties of the global metabolic connectivity. We highlight how the integration of both approaches promises to deliver insights on the structure and function of metabolic systems with wide-ranging implications in discovery science, precision medicine and industrial biotechnology.