title: Stoicheiometric analysis in studies of metabolism.
abstract: Stoicheiometric analysis of metabolic pathways provides a systematic way of determining which metabolite concentrations are subject to constraints, information that may otherwise be very difficult to recognize in a large branched pathway. The procedure involves representing the pathway structure in the form of a matrix and then carrying out row operations to convert the matrix into "row echelon form": this is a form in which as many as possible of the elements on the main diagonal are non-zero, and all of the elements below the main diagonal are zero. If exactly the same operations are carried out on a unit matrix of order equal to the number of intermediate metabolites in the pathway, the resulting matrix allows the stoicheiometric constraints to be read off directly.
authors.affiliation: Bioénergétique et Ingénierie des Protéines, Institut Fédératif Biologie Structurale et Microbiologie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 31 chemin Joseph-Aiguier, B.P. 71, 13402 Marseille Cedex 20, France. athel@ibsm.cnrs-mrs.fr
authors.forename: Athel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cornish-Bowden
authors.forename: Jan-Hendrik S
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Hofmeyr
authors.forename: María Luz
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Cárdenas
mesh_terms: D000227:Adenine Nucleotides / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D006019:Glycolysis; D007700:Kinetics; D008660:Metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D014346:Trypanosoma brucei brucei / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000227:Adenine Nucleotides