Computing Thermodynamically Consistent Elementary Flux Modes with Answer Set Programming
Résumé
Elementary Flux Modes (EFM) allow the description of the minimal sets of reactions in a metabolic network under steady-state conditions, representing unique and feasible pathways. They fully characterize the solution space but a combinatorial explosion prevents their calculation when the network is large. Furthermore, it is not necessary to calculate all of them, as many of them are not biologically relevant. Therefore, the software aspefm, which combines the use of Answer Set Programming and Linear Programming, proposes to integrate different types of constraints in the EFM computation such as equilibrium constants, Boolean regulatory rules, growth yields and growth medium. The addition of constraints makes it possible to cut off research pathways that lead to non-relevant EFMs. The computation of the EFMs of interest significantly reduces the computational time and saves space. In this article, we have added thermodynamic constraints in terms of the Gibbs energy of reactions, which constrain metabolite concentrations within a chosen interval. This constraint is added as a theory propagator and it reduces the enumeration during the computation. We applied our tool to the central carbon metabolism of E. coli and showed that the Gibbs energy constraints suppress a large number of non-relevant EFMs.
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