This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Supplemental Data All Versions of this Article: 151/3/1570    most recent pp.109.141267v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Google Scholar Articles by Poolman, M. G. Articles by Fell, D. A. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Poolman, M. G. Articles by Fell, D. A. Agricola Articles by Poolman, M. G. Articles by Fell, D. A.

SYSTEMS BIOLOGY, MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, AND GENE REGULATION

A Genome-Scale Metabolic Model of Arabidopsis and Some of Its Properties^1,[C],[W]

School of Life Science, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, Oxford OX3 OBP, United Kingdom (M.G.P., D.A.F.); and Department of Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RB, United Kingdom (L.M., L.J.S.)

We describe the construction and analysis of a genome-scale metabolic model of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) primarily derived from the annotations in the Aracyc database. We used techniques based on linear programming to demonstrate the following: (1) that the model is capable of producing biomass components (amino acids, nucleotides, lipid, starch, and cellulose) in the proportions observed experimentally in a heterotrophic suspension culture; (2) that approximately only 15% of the available reactions are needed for this purpose and that the size of this network is comparable to estimates of minimal network size for other organisms; (3) that reactions may be grouped according to the changes in flux resulting from a hypothetical stimulus (in this case demand for ATP) and that this allows the identification of potential metabolic modules; and (4) that total ATP demand for growth and maintenance can be inferred and that this is consistent with previous estimates in prokaryotes and yeast.

The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Mark G. Poolman (mgpoolman{at}brookes.ac.uk).

^[C] Some figures in this article are displayed in color online but in black and white in the print edition.

^[W] The online version of this article contains Web-only data.

www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.109.141267

^* Corresponding author; e-mail mgpoolman{at}brookes.ac.uk.

Received May 11, 2009; accepted September 11, 2009; published September 15, 2009.