Metabolic Flux Analysis

Metabolic flux analysis (MFA) has been a pillar of pathway engineering since the inception of biocatalysis development. In pathway engineering, once the designed pathway is introduced in the host strain, the metabolic fluxes need to be re-apportioned towards the target product. In the past three decades, various flux analysis techniques have been developed and applied to elucidate intracellular metabolism in a wide range of biological systems, ranging from simple microbes to complex eukaryotic systems.

Various MFA methods based on different computational models can be distinguished by (i) whether metabolic steady-state is assumed for the system; (ii) whether stable-isotope tracers are applied; and (iii) whether isotopic steady-state is assumed for the system. Those models are either stoichiometry-only models such as flux balance analysis (FBA), or kinetic models, which show promise in capturing the dynamic behavior of metabolic pathways and regulatory interactions. Among them, FBA is widely used for large-scale model, such as genome-scale, because of its less computational intensity. It produces a flux solution space that satisfies an assumed cellular objective function (e.g., maximum cell growth).

Our metabolic flux analysis service is enabled by the most updated knowledge of biology, bioinformatics and software development. We assist our clients to solve different simulations based on our models. Our flux analysis is aiming to quantify fluxes in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems.

We offer a wide range of services to support all research and development activities:

• Metabolic network reconstruction.
• Mathematical model construction.
• Objective optimization.
• Software development.

Figure 1. Classes of flux analysis approaches
(Current Opinion in Chemical Biology 2015)