Motivation: Large metabolic models, including genome-scale metabolic models, are nowadays common in systems biology, biotechnology and pharmacology. They typically contain thousands of metabolites and reactions and therefore methods for their automatic visualization and interactive exploration can facilitate a better understanding of these models.
Results: We developed a novel method for the visual exploration of large metabolic models and implemented it in LMME (Large Metabolic Model Explorer), an add-on for the biological network analysis tool VANTED. The underlying idea of our method is to analyze a large model as follows. Starting from a decomposition into several subsystems, relationships between these subsystems are identified and an overview is computed and visualized. From this overview, detailed subviews may be constructed and visualized in order to explore subsystems and relationships in greater detail. Decompositions may either be predefined or computed, using built-in or self-implemented methods. Realized as add-on for VANTED, LMME is embedded in a domain-specific environment, allowing for further related analysis at any stage during the exploration. We describe the method, provide a use case and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different decomposition methods.
Availability And Implementation: The methods and algorithms presented here are implemented in LMME, an open-source add-on for VANTED. LMME can be downloaded from www.cls.uni-konstanz.de/software/lmme and VANTED can be downloaded from www.vanted.org. The source code of LMME is available from GitHub, at https://github.com/LSI-UniKonstanz/lmme.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btab335 | DOI Listing |
Neuroinformatics
January 2025
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, 760 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, USA.
A reader of the peer-reviewed neuroscience literature will often encounter expressions like the following: 'the brain is a dynamic system', 'the brain is a complex network', or 'the brain is a highly metabolic organ'. These expressions attempt to define the essential functions and properties of the mammalian or human brain in a simple phrase or sentence, sometimes using metaphors or analogies. We sought to survey the most common phrases of the form 'the brain is…' in the biomedical literature to provide insights into current conceptualizations of the brain.
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Department of Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
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Recent Finding: Recent studies indicate that while animal-based proteins have traditionally been considered the gold standard for supporting muscle protein synthesis, certain plant-based protein blends, fortified with leucine or other essential amino acids, can produce comparable anabolic responses.
Plants will form the basis of artificial ecosystems in space exploration and the creation of bases on other planets. Astrophysical factors, such as ionizing radiation (IR), magnetic fields (MF) and gravity, can significantly affect the growth and development of plants beyond Earth. However, to date, the ways in which these factors influence plants remain largely unexplored.
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Department of Molecular Biology, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan.
Oscillation of the active form of the initiator protein DnaA (ATP-DnaA) allows for the timely regulation for chromosome replication. After initiation, DnaA-bound ATP is hydrolyzed, producing inactive ADP-DnaA. For the next round of initiation, ADP-DnaA interacts with the chromosomal locus DARS2 bearing binding sites for DnaA, a DNA-bending protein IHF, and a transcription activator Fis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNucleic Acids Res
January 2025
Laboratoire de Microbiologie et de Génétique Moléculaires, Centre de Biologie Intégrative, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, 165 Rue Marianne Grunberg-Manago, campus Paul Sabatier, 118, route de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse Cedex, France.
Bacterial genomes contain a plethora of secondary replicons of divergent size. Circular replicons must carry a system for resolving dimeric forms, resulting from recombination between sister copies. These systems use site-specific recombinases.
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