Production of biofuels has been one of the promising efforts in biotechnology in the past few decades. The perspective of these efforts can be reduction of increasing demands for fossil fuels and consequently reducing environmental pollution. Nonetheless, most previous approaches did not succeed in obviating many big challenges in this way. In recent years systems biology with the help of microorganisms has been trying to overcome these challenges. Unicellular cyanobacteria are widespread phototrophic microorganisms that have capabilities such as consuming solar energy and atmospheric carbon dioxide for growth and thus can be a suitable chassis for the production of valuable organic materials such as biofuels. For the ultimate use of metabolic potential of cyanobacteria, it is necessary to understand the reactions that are taking place inside the metabolic network of these microorganisms. In this study, we developed a Java tool to reconstruct an integrated metabolic network of a cyanobacterium (Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803). We merged three existing reconstructed metabolic networks of this microorganism. Then, after modeling for biofuel production, the results from flux balance analysis (FBA) disclosed an increased yield in biofuel production for ethanol, isobutanol, 3-methyl-1-butanol, 2-methyl-1-butanol, and propanol. The numbers of blocked reactions were also decreased for 2-methyl-1-butanol production. In addition, coverage of the metabolic network in terms of the number of metabolites and reactions was increased in the new obtained model.
Nowadays, studying microorganisms has become faster and deeper than the last decades, thanks to the modeling of genome-scale metabolic networks. Completed genome sequencing projects of microorganisms and annotating these sequences have provided a worthwhile platform for reconstructing and modeling genome-scale metabolic networks. The genome-scale metabolic network reconstruction is a laborious and time-consuming task which needs an extensive study and search in different types of databases. Furthermore, it also requires an iterative process of creating and curating the obtained network, particularly with experimental methods. Hence, different types of reconstructions and models of a targeted microorganism can be found with different qualities, as the goal and need of researchers differ. Due to these circumstances, scientists have to continue with only one of the reconstructed metabolic networks of each microorganism and ignore the rest in their in silico works. It is clear that having a tool which merges different metabolic networks of a single organism can be a useful and effective way to study them with minimal cost and time. To meet this need, we have developed iMet , the standalone graphical user interface (GUI) software tool to merge multiple reconstructed metabolic networks of microorganisms. As a case study, we merged three reconstructed metabolic networks of a cyanobacterium using iMet, and then all of them (including the new merged one) became modeled. The results of our evaluations including Flux Balance Analysis (FBA), revealed enhancing metabolic network coverage as well as increasing yield of desired products in the new obtained model.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.