Protein networks, metabolic pathways, flux control analysis

Protein network analysis and metabolic control analysis constitute mathematical frameworks for describing regulatory, metabolic and signaling pathways. They are major research domains that have recently attracted large multidisciplinary efforts to predict and quantify the variations at the levels of: fluxes, species concentrations, modification of components following post-transcriptional events to understand protein and metabolic regulations. Determination of the elasticities of the systems allow to evaluate the fluctuation rates of the flux control coefficients, and consequently, the flexibility and the adaptibility of the metabolic systems. From this study, the limiting step of the system can be identified with applications for drug development.

While experimental data on protein interactions in model organims are increasing exponentially, they are notoriously noisy and incomplete. The challenge is to organize the available network data into useful models of cellular machinery, that can be used to predict the behavior of the system, not only within the model species, but also within less well studied organisms.