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. 2009 Apr;71(3):750-69.
doi: 10.1007/s11538-008-9380-8. Epub 2008 Dec 20.

Efficient reconstruction of metabolic pathways by bidirectional chemical search

Liliana Félix  1 , Francesc Rosselló, Gabriel Valiente
Affiliations

Efficient reconstruction of metabolic pathways by bidirectional chemical search

Liliana Félix et al. Bull Math Biol. 2009 Apr.

Abstract

One of the main challenges in systems biology is the establishment of the metabolome: a catalogue of the metabolites and biochemical reactions present in a specific organism. Current knowledge of biochemical pathways as stored in public databases such as KEGG, is based on carefully curated genomic evidence for the presence of specific metabolites and enzymes that activate particular biochemical reactions. In this paper, we present an efficient method to build a substantial portion of the artificial chemistry defined by the metabolites and biochemical reactions in a given metabolic pathway, which is based on bidirectional chemical search. Computational results on the pathways stored in KEGG reveal novel biochemical pathways.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
A multi-molecule and a simplified representation of it as a chemical graph. Only some weight 0 edges that make the graph connected are shown for clarity.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
A novel metabolic pathway found in the biosynthesis of steroids.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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