Sommaire:

Metabolism is the set of enzymatic reactions that cells use to generate energy and biomass. Interestingly, recent studies suggest that many metabolic enzymes assemble into large clusters, often in response to environmental conditions. Theoretically, we find that large-scale enzyme clusters, with no internal spatial ordering of enzymes, offer many of the same advantages as direct substrate channeling: accelerating intermediate processing, protecting intermediates from degradation/cross-reactions, and protecting the cell from toxic intermediates. The model predicts the separation and size of coclusters that maximize metabolic efficiency. For direct validation, we study a metabolic branch point in Escherichia coli and experimentally confirm the model predictions. Our studies establish a quantitative framework to understand coclustering-mediated metabolic channeling and its application to both efficiency improvement and metabolic regulation.

Pour plus d'informations, merci de contacter Palmeri J.