Application of Control Analysis to the Study of Amino Acid Metabolism

Abstract

For laboratory scientists studying the control of metabolism, the usefulness or otherwise of theories of metabolic control is determined by the ease of their utility for the analysis of experimental data, and the insights into the control of metabolism provided by this data analysis. In this chapter we describe the application of the metabolic control theory developed by Higgins (1965), Kacser & Bums (1973) and Heinrich & Rapoport (1974) to our studies of amino acid metabolism both previous and current. We have found this theory of control analysis and modelling of the pathways under study, to be invaluable tools in the elucidation of the control structure of amino acid metabolism. The distinction between regulatory importance, regulability and control, and the way in which the regulability and control coefficients of an enzyme combine to describe its regulatory importance will be discussed.