A reverse glyoxylate shunt to build a non-native route from C4 to C2 in Escherichia coli.

Most central metabolic pathways such as glycolysis, fatty acid synthesis, and the TCA cycle have complementary pathways that run in the reverse direction to allow flexible storage and utilization of resources. However, the glyoxylate shunt, which allows for the synthesis of four-carbon TCA cycle intermediates from acetyl-CoA, has not been found to be reversible to date. As a result, glucose can only be converted to acetyl-CoA via the decarboxylation of the three-carbon molecule pyruvate in heterotrophs.

Modeling the physiological glucose-insulin dynamic system on diabetics.

A novel mathematical model is presented to describe the dynamic behavior of plasma glucose and insulin on diabetic subjects. Though various models have been proposed to simulate the short-term (a variety of intravenous glucose or insulin injection) glucose-insulin dynamics, it is intended to construct a modified delay differential equations (DDEs) model based on the human glucose-insulin metabolic system. Five specific adjustable parameters inside the model are defined as the factors of the major physiological functions.