from Eivind Almaas, Per Bruheim, Rahmi Lale and Svein Valla writing in Systems Microbiology: Current Topics and Applications:

The functional repertoire of an organism's metabolic network is closely linked to its phenotype and potential for utility in metabolic engineering applications. In this chapter, we discuss a systems biology view of Escherichia coli metabolism by integrating current genome-scale computational modelling approaches with available molecular genetics tools, as well as the experimental framework for metabolite and metabolic flux determination.

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from Diana Clausznitzer, Judith P. Armitage and Robert G. Endres writing in Systems Microbiology: Current Topics and Applications:

Bacterial chemotaxis is a paradigm for biological sensing and information transmission. The chemotaxis signal-transduction pathway allows cells to sense chemicals in their surroundings in order to regulate flagellated rotary motors, thus allowing them to swim towards nutrients and away from toxins. Importantly, cells are able to sense with remarkably high sensitivity over a wide range of chemical background concentrations. To make this possible, chemoreceptors do not signal independently but form clusters for amplification and integration of signals, as well as for adaptation to persistent stimulation. While chemotaxis in Escherichia coli has been exceptionally well characterised, new experimental facts still require revisions of existing models and thus further increase our understanding of sensing and signalling in bacteria. Additionally, experiments on other bacterial species such as Bacillus subtilis and Rhodobacter sphaeroides indicate that bacteria other than E. coli can have substantially different and more complex chemotaxis pathways, which provides renewed challenges for experimentalists and modellers alike. Here we discuss our current understanding as well as the frontiers of bacterial chemotaxis research.

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from Theresa Kouril, Alexey Kolodkin, Melanie Zaparty, Ralf Steuer, Peter Ruoff, Hans V. Westerhoff, Jacky Snoep, Bettina Siebers and the SulfoSYS consortium writing in Systems Microbiology: Current Topics and Applications:

Life at high temperature challenges the stability of macromolecules and cellular components, but also the stability of metabolites, which has received little attention. For the cell, the thermal instability of metabolites means it has to deal with the loss of free energy and carbon, or in more extremes, it might result in the accumulation of dead-end compounds. In order to elucidate the requirements and principles of metabolism at high temperature, we used a comparative blueprint modelling approach of the lower part of the glycolysis cycle. The conversion of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate to pyruvate from the thermoacidophilic Crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus P2 (optimal growth-temperature 80ºC) was modelled based on the available blueprint model of the eukaryotic model organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae (optimal growth-temperature of 30ºC). In S. solfataricus only one reaction is different, namely glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate is directly converted into 3-phosphoglycerate by the non-phosphorylating glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, omitting the extremely heat-instable 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate. By taking the temperature dependent non-enzymatic (spontaneous) degradation of 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate in account, modelling reveals that a hot lifestyle requires a cool design.

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