Metabolic control analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Metabolic control analysis - Essay Example The metabolic control analysis is one way of studying the kinetic behavior of enzymatic systems. Enzyme kinetics is the study of the way enzymes catalyze chemical reactions. Conducting metabolic control analysis helps one understand the effects of properties that particular enzymes posses, and how it affects metabolic fluxes and concentrations. By use of this model, it is possible to tell how changes in enzymatic concentration affect the sensitivity of metabolic variables such as fluxes and metabolic concentrations. Therefore, the metabolic control analysis helps in the calculation of these sensitivities, otherwise known as flux control coefficients of enzymes from their elasticities, or kinetic properties. The procedures used in the calculations are modified to suit the most complex pathway designs. Hence, mathematical procedures have been derived to enable calculation of the effects of the flux control coefficients according to their intensity. All this information is necessary in the understanding of how the enzyme networks functions. It, therefore, becomes possible to predict their reaction to any disturbance out of the norm, such as environmental disruptions (Heinstra & Geer, 1991). Control coefficients determine the relative change in fluxes and concentrations, which occurs as a response to environmental and genetic changes upon the enzymes. There are various ways in which these coefficients are estimated. One way is the single modulation, which is a simple method, used in cases where only one enzyme is disrupted. Another method is the double modulation. In this method, two steps are employed in the study of a pathway and without knowing the kinetic properties in advance, and then kinetic properties are known after the analysis is conducted. This method is advantageous because the values of the changes do not have to be known in advance. According to the analysis of Acerenza and Cornish-Bowden (1990), this