Control of the flux in the arginine pathway of Neurospora crassa. The flux from citrulline to arginine

Abstract

The arginine pathway is a complex one, having many branch points and effector interactions. In order to assess the quantitative role of the various mechanisms that influence the flux in the pathway, the system was divided experimentally into two moieties by the introduction of a genetic block abolishing ornithine carbamoyltransferase activity. This normally produces citrulline from ornithine within the mitochondria. The endogenous citrulline supply was replaced by citrulline in the growth medium, and control of the influx rate was achieved by using glycine or histidine as uptake inhibitors. By modulating the influx rate over a large range of values, the importance of such factors as reversibility, saturation, inhibition and induction in affecting the flux and the sizes of intermediate pools between citrulline and arginine was assessed. The role of expansion fluxes as important controls in the exponentially growing system was established.