title: Use of genome-scale metabolic models for understanding microbial physiology.
abstract: The exploitation of microorganisms in industrial, medical, food and environmental biotechnology requires a comprehensive understanding of their physiology. The availability of genome sequences and accumulation of high-throughput data allows gaining understanding of microbial physiology at the systems level, and genome-scale metabolic models represent a valuable framework for integrative analysis of metabolism of microorganisms. Genome-scale metabolic models are reconstructed based on a combination of genome sequence information and detailed biochemical information, and these reconstructed models can be used for analyzing and simulating the operation of metabolism in response to different stimuli. Here we discuss the requirement for having detailed physiological insight in order to exploit microorganisms for production of fuels, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. We further describe the reconstruction process of genome-scale metabolic models and different algorithms that can be used to apply these models to gain improved insight into microbial physiology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Liming
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Rasmus
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Agren
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bordel
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nielsen
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001709:Biotechnology; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D005285:Fermentation; D005516:Food Microbiology; D023281:Genomics; D007218:Industrial Microbiology; D008827:Microbiological Phenomena; D008954:Models, Biological; D049490:Systems Biology