C4GEM, a genome-scale metabolic model to study C4 plant metabolism.

Leaves of C(4) grasses (such as maize [Zea mays], sugarcane [Saccharum officinarum], and sorghum [Sorghum bicolor]) form a classical Kranz leaf anatomy. Unlike C(3) plants, where photosynthetic CO(2) fixation proceeds in the mesophyll (M), the fixation process in C(4) plants is distributed between two cell types, the M cell and the bundle sheath (BS) cell. Here, we develop a C(4) genome-scale model (C4GEM) for the investigation of flux distribution in M and BS cells during C(4) photosynthesis.

AraGEM, a genome-scale reconstruction of the primary metabolic network in Arabidopsis.

Genome-scale metabolic network models have been successfully used to describe metabolism in a variety of microbial organisms as well as specific mammalian cell types and organelles. This systems-based framework enables the exploration of global phenotypic effects of gene knockouts, gene insertion, and up-regulation of gene expression. We have developed a genome-scale metabolic network model (AraGEM) covering primary metabolism for a compartmentalized plant cell based on the Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) genome.