Computer-Guided Metabolic Engineering

Abstract

Computational methods and tools are nowadays widely applied for rational Metabolic Engineering approaches. However, what is still missing are clear advices on the right order of the application of these tools. The availability of genomic information for a large number of cellular systems especially requires the use of computers to store, analyze, and process knowledge of single enzymes, metabolic pathways, and cellular networks. The trend of integrating measured quantities for the metabolome, the transcriptome, and the proteome into mathematical models, combined with methods for the rational design of cellular networks, has led to the research field Systems Metabolic Engineering, a field that extends and amplifies the classical field of Metabolic Engineering. This chapter describes mathematical and computational approaches on the cellular and the process levels. In the Material section, modeling approaches and methods for model analysis are introduced, and the current state of the art is reviewed. In the Method section, we propose a protocol for efficiently combining various approaches for the optimal production of desired biotechnological products.