Daniel C. Zielinski

Quantitative prediction of cellular metabolism with constraint-based models: the COBRA Toolbox v2.0

Over the past decade, a growing community of researchers has emerged around the use of constraint-based reconstruction and analysis (COBRA) methods to simulate, analyze and predict a variety of metabolic phenotypes using genome-scale models. The COBRA Toolbox, a MATLAB package for implementing COBRA methods, was presented earlier. Here we present a substantial update of this in silico toolbox. Version 2.0 of the COBRA Toolbox expands the scope of computations by including in silico analysis methods developed since its original release. New functions include (i) network gap filling, (ii) (13)C analysis, (iii) metabolic engineering, (iv) omics-guided analysis and (v) visualization. As with the first version, the COBRA Toolbox reads and writes systems biology markup language-formatted models. In version 2.0, we improved performance, usability and the level of documentation. A suite of test scripts can now be used to learn the core functionality of the toolbox and validate results. This toolbox lowers the barrier of entry to use powerful COBRA methods.

Model-driven evaluation of the production potential for growth-coupled products of Escherichia coli.

Integrated approaches utilizing in silico analyses will be necessary to successfully advance the field of metabolic engineering. Here, we present an integrated approach through a systematic model-driven evaluation of the production potential for the bacterial production organism Escherichia coli to produce multiple native products from different representative feedstocks through coupling metabolite production to growth rate. Designs were examined for 11 unique central metabolism and amino acid targets from three different substrates under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Optimal strain designs were reported for designs which possess maximum yield, substrate-specific productivity, and strength of growth-coupling for up to 10 reaction eliminations (knockouts). In total, growth-coupled designs could be identified for 36 out of the total 54 conditions tested, corresponding to eight out of the 11 targets. There were 17 different substrate/target pairs for which over 80% of the theoretical maximum potential could be achieved. The developed method introduces a new concept of objective function tilting for strain design. This study provides specific metabolic interventions (strain designs) for production strains that can be experimentally implemented, characterizes the potential for E. coli to produce native compounds, and outlines a strain design pipeline that can be utilized to design production strains for additional organisms.

Recon 2.2: from reconstruction to model of human metabolism

IntroductionThe human genome-scale metabolic reconstruction details all known metabolic reactions occurring in humans, and thereby holds substantial promise for studying complex diseases and phenotypes. Capturing the whole human metabolic reconstruction is an on-going task and since the last community effort generated a consensus reconstruction, several updates have been developed.ObjectivesWe report a new consensus version, Recon 2.2, which integrates various alternative versions with significant additional updates. In addition to re-establishing a consensus reconstruction, further key objectives included providing more comprehensive annotation of metabolites and genes, ensuring full mass and charge balance in all reactions, and developing a model that correctly predicts ATP production on a range of carbon sources.MethodsRecon 2.2 has been developed through a combination of manual curation and automated error checking. Specific and significant manual updates include a respecification of fatty acid metabolism, oxidative phosphorylation and a coupling of the electron transport chain to ATP synthase activity. All metabolites have definitive chemical formulae and charges specified, and these are used to ensure full mass and charge reaction balancing through an automated linear programming approach. Additionally, improved integration with transcriptomics and proteomics data has been facilitated with the updated curation of relationships between genes, proteins and reactions.ResultsRecon 2.2 now represents the most predictive model of human metabolism to date as demonstrated here. Extensive manual curation has increased the reconstruction size to 5324 metabolites, 7785 reactions and 1675 associated genes, which now are mapped to a single standard. The focus upon mass and charge balancing of all reactions, along with better representation of energy generation, has produced a flux model that correctly predicts ATP yield on different carbon sources.ConclusionThrough these updates we have achieved the most complete and best annotated consensus human metabolic reconstruction available, thereby increasing the ability of this resource to provide novel insights into normal and disease states in human. The model is freely available from the Biomodels database (http://identifiers.org/biomodels.db/MODEL1603150001).

A Consensus Genome-scale Reconstruction of Chinese Hamster Ovary Cell Metabolism

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells dominate biotherapeutic protein production and are widely used in mammalian cell line engineering research. To elucidate metabolic bottlenecks in protein production and to guide cell engineering and bioprocess optimization, we reconstructed the metabolic pathways in CHO and associated them with >1,700 genes in the Cricetulus griseus genome. The genome-scale metabolic model based on this reconstruction, iCHO1766, and cell-line-specific models for CHO-K1, CHO-S, and CHO-DG44 cells provide the biochemical basis of growth and recombinant protein production. The models accurately predict growth phenotypes and known auxotrophies in CHO cells. With the models, we quantify the protein synthesis capacity of CHO cells and demonstrate that common bioprocess treatments, such as histone deacetylase inhibitors, inefficiently increase product yield. However, our simulations show that the metabolic resources in CHO are more than three times more efficiently utilized for growth or recombinant protein synthesis following targeted efforts to engineer the CHO secretory pathway. This model will further accelerate CHO cell engineering and help optimize bioprocesses.

A Systems Approach to Predict Oncometabolites via Context-Specific Genome-Scale Metabolic Networks

Altered metabolism in cancer cells has been viewed as a passive response required for a malignant transformation. However, this view has changed through the recently described metabolic oncogenic factors: mutated isocitrate dehydrogenases (IDH), succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), and fumarate hydratase (FH) that produce oncometabolites that competitively inhibit epigenetic regulation. In this study, we demonstrate in silico predictions of oncometabolites that have the potential to dysregulate epigenetic controls in nine types of cancer by incorporating massive scale genetic mutation information (collected from more than 1,700 cancer genomes), expression profiling data, and deploying Recon 2 to reconstruct context-specific genome-scale metabolic models. Our analysis predicted 15 compounds and 24 substructures of potential oncometabolites that could result from the loss-of-function and gain-of-function mutations of metabolic enzymes, respectively. These results suggest a substantial potential for discovering unidentified oncometabolites in various forms of cancers.

Predicting outcomes of steady-state 13C isotope tracing experiments using Monte Carlo sampling

BackgroundCarbon-13 (13C) analysis is a commonly used method for estimating reaction rates in biochemical networks. The choice of carbon labeling pattern is an important consideration when designing these experiments. We present a novel Monte Carlo algorithm for finding the optimal substrate input label for a particular experimental objective (flux or flux ratio). Unlike previous work, this method does not require assumption of the flux distribution beforehand.ResultsUsing a large E. coli isotopomer model, different commercially available substrate labeling patterns were tested computationally for their ability to determine reaction fluxes. The choice of optimal labeled substrate was found to be dependent upon the desired experimental objective. Many commercially available labels are predicted to be outperformed by complex labeling patterns. Based on Monte Carlo Sampling, the dimensionality of experimental data was found to be considerably less than anticipated, suggesting that effectiveness of 13C experiments for determining reaction fluxes across a large-scale metabolic network is less than previously believed.ConclusionsWhile 13C analysis is a useful tool in systems biology, high redundancy in measurements limits the information that can be obtained from each experiment. It is however possible to compute potential limitations before an experiment is run and predict whether, and to what degree, the rate of each reaction can be resolved.

Pharmacogenomic and clinical data link non-pharmacokinetic metabolic dysregulation to drug side effect pathogenesis

Drug side effects cause a significant clinical and economic burden. However, mechanisms of drug action underlying side effect pathogenesis remain largely unknown. Here, we integrate pharmacogenomic and clinical data with a human metabolic network and find that non-pharmacokinetic metabolic pathways dysregulated by drugs are linked to the development of side effects. We show such dysregulated metabolic pathways contain genes with sequence variants affecting side effect incidence, play established roles in pathophysiology, have significantly altered activity in corresponding diseases, are susceptible to metabolic inhibitors and are effective targets for therapeutic nutrient supplementation. Our results indicate that metabolic dysregulation represents a common mechanism underlying side effect pathogenesis that is distinct from the role of metabolism in drug clearance. We suggest that elucidating the relationships between the cellular response to drugs, genetic variation of patients and cell metabolism may help managing side effects by personalizing drug prescriptions and nutritional intervention strategies.

Systems biology analysis of drivers underlying hallmarks of cancer cell metabolism.

Malignant transformation is often accompanied by significant metabolic changes. To identify drivers underlying these changes, we calculated metabolic flux states for the NCI60 cell line collection and correlated the variance between metabolic states of these lines with their other properties. The analysis revealed a remarkably consistent structure underlying high flux metabolism. The three primary uptake pathways, glucose, glutamine and serine, are each characterized by three features: (1) metabolite uptake sufficient for the stoichiometric requirement to sustain observed growth, (2) overflow metabolism, which scales with excess nutrient uptake over the basal growth requirement, and (3) redox production, which also scales with nutrient uptake but greatly exceeds the requirement for growth. We discovered that resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs in these lines broadly correlates with the amount of glucose uptake. These results support an interpretation of the Warburg effect and glutamine addiction as features of a growth state that provides resistance to metabolic stress through excess redox and energy production. Furthermore, overflow metabolism observed may indicate that mitochondrial catabolic capacity is a key constraint setting an upper limit on the rate of cofactor production possible. These results provide a greater context within which the metabolic alterations in cancer can be understood.

Genome-scale metabolic model for the green alga Chlorella vulgaris UTEX 395 accurately predicts phenotypes under autotrophic, heterotrophic, and mixotrophic growth conditions

Genome-scale metabolic model for Chlorella vulgaris UTEX 395 accurately predicts phenotypes under different growth conditions. The green microalga Chlorella vulgaris has been widely recognized as a promising candidate for biofuel production due to its ability to store high lipid content and its natural metabolic versatility. Compartmentalized genome-scale metabolic models constructed from genome sequences enable quantitative insight into the transport and metabolism of compounds within a target organism. These metabolic models have long been utilized to generate optimized design strategies for an improved production process. Here, we describe the reconstruction, validation, and application of a genome-scale metabolic model for C. vulgaris UTEX 395, iCZ843. The reconstruction represents the most comprehensive model for any eukaryotic photosynthetic organism to date, based on the genome size and number of genes in the reconstruction. The highly curated model accurately predicts phenotypes under photoautotrophic, heterotrophic, and mixotrophic conditions. The model was validated against experimental data and lays the foundation for model-driven strain design and medium alteration to improve yield. Calculated flux distributions under different trophic conditions show that a number of key pathways are affected by nitrogen starvation conditions, including central carbon metabolism and amino acid, nucleotide, and pigment biosynthetic pathways. Furthermore, model prediction of growth rates under various medium compositions and subsequent experimental validation showed an increased growth rate with the addition of tryptophan and methionine.

Recon3D enables a three-dimensional view of gene variation in human metabolism

Genome-scale network reconstructions have helped uncover the molecular basis of metabolism. Here we present Recon3D, a computational resource that includes three-dimensional (3D) metabolite and protein structure data and enables integrated analyses of metabolic functions in humans. We use Recon3D to functionally characterize mutations associated with disease, and identify metabolic response signatures that are caused by exposure to certain drugs. Recon3D represents the most comprehensive human metabolic network model to date, accounting for 3,288 open reading frames (representing 17% of functionally annotated human genes), 13,543 metabolic reactions involving 4,140 unique metabolites, and 12,890 protein structures. These data provide a unique resource for investigating molecular mechanisms of human metabolism. Recon3D is available at http://vmh.life.