Metabolic Model for Flux Balance Analysis

Flux balance analysis is a mathematical approach for analyzing the flow of metabolites through a metabolic network.This approach can be used for insilico modelling so that we can get a first hand idea before we can proceed to our actual experiment .

Flux Balance Analysis computes theoretical performance limits, for example we want to calculate the rate of consumption and production of byproducts by a cell line we can  calculate theoretically optimal behavior of the system with respect to the objective and constraints we intend to apply on our system. 

Most common example is bacterial growth ,growing bacterial cells growing in culture evolve under selection pressure for biomass production, the theoretical limit on biomass production may indeed be approached

How closely other systems can be expected to approach optimal condition depends on the constraints should be realistic. In humans, you would for example expect that the physiology of the person would greatly affect the growth rate of any cancer cells.

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Unknown Monday, February 17, 2014  No comment

What is the role of autolysin in peptidoglycan synthesis and why are these enzymes tightly regulated in bacteria?

Autolysins are bacteriolytic enzymes which digest the cell-wall peptidoglycan of the bacteria that produce them,so potentially these are lethal, autolysins appear to be universal among almost all the bacteria that possess peptidoglycan. Peptidoglycan, is the substrate of autolysins, and is a polymer of amino sugars cross-linked by short peptides that forms a kind of covalent matrix which surrounds the cytoplasmic membrane region and constitutes the major skeletal kind of component of the cell wall.

This is very important for determining cell shape and preventing osmotic lysis under hypotonic conditions. Cell-wall peptidoglycan, very strong, as well as very dynamic: the structure expands as the cell grows and is reshaped when it divides or differentiates. The possibility that autolysins are involved in selective removal of peptidoglycan has led to proposals that they are involved in numerous cellular processes including cell growth, cell-wall turnover, peptidoglycan maturation, cell division, separation, motility, chemotaxis, genetic competence, protein secretion, differentiation and pathogenicity

so there is need for tight regulation to prevent the self destruction

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Unknown Monday, December 23, 2013  No comment