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Published on: January 16, 2016
Modular rate laws for enzymatic reactions: thermodynamics, elasticities and implementation
Wolfram Liebermeister1, Jannis Uhlendorf, Edda Klipp
1Institut für Biologie, Theoretische Biophysik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. wolfram.liebermeister@biologie.hu-berlin.de
We introduce new reversible rate laws for metabolic modeling, ensuring thermodynamic consistency. These laws simplify kinetic modeling and are compatible with Systems Biology Markup Language standards.
Area of Science:
- Systems biology
- Metabolic modeling
- Biochemical kinetics
Background:
- Standard rate laws are essential for creating kinetic models of metabolic networks.
- Existing laws must be simple, general, biochemically plausible, and thermodynamically consistent.
- Thermodynamic consistency relates kinetic constants to metabolic fluxes and concentrations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To present a new family of reversible rate laws for reactions with arbitrary stoichiometries and various regulatory types.
- To ensure that parameter sets from model fitting, sampling, or optimization lead to consistent chemical equilibrium states.
- To reformulate rate laws using saturation values for simpler formulae and highlight the role of chemical potential differences.
Main Methods:
- Developed a family of reversible rate laws applicable to diverse reaction stoichiometries and regulations.
- Introduced a thermodynamically safe parameterization for these rate laws.
- Reformulated rate laws using saturation values for simplified expressions of rates and elasticities.
- Proposed standard syntax and semantic annotations for Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) for automated handling.
Main Results:
- Presented a family of reversible rate laws, encompassing mass-action, Michaelis-Menten, and uni-uni reversible Hill kinetics as special cases.
- Demonstrated that the proposed parameterization guarantees consistent chemical equilibrium states.
- Showcased simplified formulae for rates and elasticities adjustable to stationary flux distributions.
- Highlighted the significance of chemical potential differences as thermodynamic driving forces.
- Compared the modular rate laws with the thermodynamic-kinetic modeling formalism.
- Discussed a simplified rate law where reaction rate directly depends on reaction affinity.
Conclusions:
- The new family of reversible rate laws provides a robust framework for kinetic modeling of metabolic networks.
- The thermodynamically safe parameterization ensures biochemical realism and consistency.
- The reformulation simplifies model analysis and highlights thermodynamic driving forces.
- Standardization for SBML facilitates automated implementation and broader application.
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