Abstract

Of all the molecular-interaction networks in plants, metabolism is by far and away the most completely described both in terms of network topology and in terms of the properties of its molecular components. Moreover, experimental tools now exist that allow systematic measurement of its behaviour. The construction of a mathematical model that encapsulates the metabolic network of plants at ‘genome scale’ is therefore a plausible goal (especially in the case of model plants such as Arabidopsis). However, although genomic information provides a starting point in establishing a consensus metabolic network topology, a great deal of experimental input will also be required. This will include transcriptomic / proteomic data to constrain the model to those enzymes actually present under a given condition as well as metabolic flux maps to validate the model output. The importance of the integration of experimental data into models will be discussed and examples will be given to show how different experimental strategies can be used to provide information about the regulatory structure within the metabolic network.

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