Metabolic Control Analysis of Exponential Growth and Product Formation

Metabolic Control Analysis defines the relationships between the change in activity of an enzyme and the resulting impacts on metabolic fluxes and metabolite concentrations at steady state. In many biotechnological applications of metabolic engineering, however, the goal is to alter the product yield. In this case, although metabolism may be at a pseudo-steady state, the amount of biomass catalysing the metabolism can be growing exponentially. Here, expressions are derived that relate the change in activity of an enzyme and its flux control coefficient to the change in yield from an exponentially growing system. Conversely, the expressions allow estimation of an enzyme's flux control coefficient over the pathway generating the product from measurements of the changes in enzyme activity and yield.