Modern Control Theories: a Consumers’ Test

Abstract

During the last decades several theoretical frameworks have been developed for a quantitative approach to studies of control of metabolism. Two important theories are biochemical systems theory developed by Savageau (1969) and metabolic control analysis formulated independently by Kacser & Bums (1973) and Heinrich & Rapoport (1974). Crabtree & Newsholme (1985, 1987) have combined aspects of these two theories in their treatment of control of metabolism. (This theory has been called flux-oriented theory by Savageau and colleagues, for example in Chapters 4 and 5 of this book, but no name is in general use). So far application of the theories to experimental practice has been relatively rare. To our knowledge, only control analysis has been applied to some extent by workers outside the group of the originators of the theories. This does not necessarily imply that control analysis is better than the other two theories. It does, however, suggest that control analysis is easier to understand for the mathematically untrained.