title: Understanding human metabolic physiology: a genome-to-systems approach.
abstract: The intricate nature of human physiology renders its study a difficult undertaking, and a systems biology approach is necessary to understand the complex interactions involved. Network reconstruction is a key step in systems biology and represents a common denominator because all systems biology research on a target organism relies on such a representation. With the recent development of genome-scale human metabolic networks, metabolic systems analysis is now possible and has initiated a shift towards human systems biology. Here, we review the important aspects of reconstructing a bottom-up human metabolic network, the network's role in modeling human physiology and the necessity for a community-based consensus reconstruction of human metabolism to be established.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093-0412, USA.
authors.forename: Monica L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Mo
authors.forename: Bernhard Ø
authors.initials: BØ
authors.lastname: Palsson
mesh_terms: D002874:Chromosome Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D016678:Genome / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D020543:Proteome / Q000378:metabolism*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology*; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D020543:Proteome