Temporal Aspects of the Control of Metabolic Processes

Abstract

A metabolic system can be defined as composed of metabolites that are interconverted by enzyme reactions. The change of each metabolite concentration with time (dS _i /dt) depends on the balance between the rates v _j of production and consumption of the metabolite:

$$\frac{{d{S_i}}}{{dt}} = \sum\limits_j {{n_{ij}}{v_j}} ,i = 1, \ldots ,m$$

(1)

in which n _ij is the stoicheiometric coefficient of S _i in the reaction j and m is the number of metabolites.