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March 11, 2004
Doraiswami Ramkrishna
Harry
Creighton Distinguished Professor School of Chemical Engineering Purdue University
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"A Cybernetic Approach to Analysis of Metabolic Regulation in Large Pathways. An Evolving Framework for Bioinformatics"
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Abstract
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We present a framework for the analysis of metabolic pathways based on the idea that evolutionary processes have endowed biological species with the capacity to respond optimally to their environments. The framework further contends that this optimal capacity is expressed through metabolic regulation, which is viewed as a strategy to selectively drive reactions that favor the survival of the organism in various ways. Thus the network of reactions in a metabolic pathway is regarded only as a set of potential reactions which can occur provided the enzymes catalyzing them are expressed and are activated. The syntheses of enzymes and their activities are controlled in accord with the realization of goals that may be either local or global. (In fact such goal-oriented behavior is what defines a cybernetic system).
The theory is amenable to description of metabolic systems with varying degrees of detail. Thus "coarse" models have been used to describe diverse patterns of mixed substrate utilization in bacterial cultures in accord with past history effects, nonlinear steady state multiplicity effects in hybridoma cultures, metabolic engineering, model-based control of bioreactors and so on.
Finally, a procedure is presented for the systematic use of the cybernetic framework for bioinformatics, with a uniquely distinct capacity to account for the role of metabolic regulation in determining an organism's metabolic function from not only its genomic background but also the profound influences of its environment.
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Room: 1064 Duncan Hall . Time: 2:30 PM For more information contact: |
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