Kinetic Models of Metabolism

Book chapter, 2021

This chapter introduces the kinetic models of metabolism followed by examples on the construction of kinetic models as well as applications. With the Michaelis-Menten formulation, the influence of enzyme properties, enzyme abundance, and metabolite concentration on the dynamic behavior of a reaction can be explained mechanistically. Kinetic models mechanistically represent the processes that take place within a cell, and these models are made up of a series of ordinary differential equations. A kinetic model requires the definition of rate equations and their respective parameters for each of the reactions, which are currently unknown for many of the reactions contained in genome-scale models. Reaction kinetics can be described with mathematical expressions where the reaction rates are functions of kinetic parameters and the concentration of metabolites. Approximative rate expression is also adopted in the kinetic model reconstruction. Estimation of parameters in rate expressions is essential for having good predictive performance of a kinetic model.