Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

A metabolic network in the evolutionary context: multiscale structure and modularity.

Victor Spirin1, Mikhail S Gelfand, Andrey A Mironov

  • 1Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|May 30, 2006
PubMed
Summary

Biological networks are modular. This study integrates metabolic and genomic data to reveal evolutionary metabolic modules, suggesting these, not pathways, are key functional units in bacteria.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Genome-wide absolute quantification of chromatin looping.

Nature structural & molecular biology·2026
Same author

Live-cell imaging of enhancer-promoter dynamics reveals transient contact-driven gene activation.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026
Same author

Cohesin bridging as a physical principle of enhancer-promoter communication.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology·2026
Same author

PDS5 proteins control genome architecture by limiting the lifetime of cohesin-NIPBL complexes.

Molecular cell·2026
Same author

Extrusion fountains are hallmarks of chromosome organization emerging upon zygotic genome activation.

Nature communications·2026
Same author

Sequence-Based Models for RNA-Protein Interactions Imputation Might Be Insufficient for Novel Signal Prediction in eCLIP Data.

International journal of molecular sciences·2026

Area of Science:

  • Systems biology
  • Evolutionary genomics
  • Metabolic networks

Background:

  • Biological networks exhibit complexity, suggesting modular organization for functional reuse.
  • The relationship between structural modules and evolutionary building blocks in biological networks is not fully understood.
  • Investigating evolutionary modules requires integrating network structure with evolutionary and genomic data.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the structure of evolutionary modules and their relationship to functional modules.
  • To integrate metabolic networks with gene evolutionary associations from comparative genomics.
  • To reveal previously unknown components and modules within metabolic-genomic networks.

Main Methods:

  • Integration of metabolic networks with gene evolutionary associations inferred from comparative genomics.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Analysis of the integrated metabolic-genomic network on macro-, meso-, and microscale levels.
  • Comparison of identified evolutionary metabolic modules with traditional metabolic pathways.

    • Main Results:

    • Macroscale analysis revealed strong associations between neighboring enzymes and enzymes in the same linear pathway.
    • Mesoscale analysis identified evolutionary metabolic modules, some differing from traditional pathways, with some pathways splitting into independent modules.
    • Microscale analysis showed high association of enzyme subunits and weak association of isoenzymes.

    Conclusions:

    • Evolutionary modules, rather than metabolic pathways, may represent the fundamental regulatory and functional units in bacterial genomes.
    • The integrated metabolic-genomic network provides a new framework for understanding biological network organization.
    • This study highlights the importance of evolutionary context in defining functional units within biological systems.