Sensitivity of metabolic networks: perturbing metabolite concentrations

TL;DR

This paper presents a qualitative, stoichiometry-based method to analyze how perturbations in metabolite concentrations affect metabolic network responses, without needing quantitative reaction rate data.

Contribution

It introduces a purely algebraic approach to study network sensitivities based solely on network structure, applicable to metabolic control and reconstruction.

Findings

Network responses can be predicted from stoichiometry alone.

The method does not require quantitative kinetic data.

Applicable to biological network analysis and control.

Abstract

Sensitivity studies the network response to perturbations. We consider local perturbations of the concentrations of metabolites at an equilibrium. We investigate the responses in the network, both of the metabolite concentrations and of the reaction fluxes. Our approach is purely qualitative, rather than quantitative. In fact, our analysis is based, solely, on the stoichiometry of the reaction network and we do not require any quantitative information on the reaction rates. Instead, the description is done only in algebraic terms, and the only data required is the network structure. Biological applications include metabolic control and network reconstruction.