Fig. 1

Overview of the workflow involved in reconstructing genome-scale metabolic networks. The reconstruction begins with the organism’s annotated genome, from which the list of metabolic genes is extracted -- this helps quantify the gamut of biochemical conversions the organism is capable of. These set of metabolic conversions or reactions, alongside their associated enzymes and encoding genes, constitutes a draft metabolic network. This draft network is then curated, to make sure that it adheres to criteria such that every reaction is mass and charge balanced, and proceeds in the direction in which it is thermodynamically favored. Then, for constructing a constraint-based model a pseudo-steady state constraint is imposed on every metabolite and a cellular objective imposed so as to arrive at biologically relevant solutions. For constructing a kinetic model, flux through a reaction is modeled using kinetic rate laws and regulatory, thermodynamic, and stoichiometric constraints imposed