Intracellular characterization of aerobic glucose metabolism in seven yeast species by 13C flux analysis and metabolomics

Regulation and control of metabolic fluxes in microbes

After about ten years of research renaissance in metabolism, the present challenge is to understand how metabolic fluxes are controlled by a complex interplay of overlapping regulatory mechanisms. Reconstruction of various regulatory network topologies is steaming, illustrating that we underestimated the broad importance of post-translational modifications such as enzyme phosphorylation or acetylation for microbial metabolism. With the growing topological knowledge, the functional relevance of these regulatory events becomes an even more pressing need. A major knowledge gap resides in the regulatory network of protein-metabolite interactions, simply because we lacked pertinent methods for systematic analyses - but a start has now been made. Perhaps most dramatic was the conceptual shift in our perception of metabolism from an engine of cellular operation to a generator of input and feedback signals for regulatory circuits that govern many important decisions on cell proliferation, differentiation, death, and naturally metabolism.