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PMID: 17617894 Published · ppublish English Journal Article

Modeling Neisseria meningitidis metabolism: from genome to metabolic fluxes.

Genome biology ·Vol. 8 ·No. 7 ·2007-00-00 ·Pages R136

Baart GJ, Zomer B, de Haan A, van der Pol LA, Beuvery EC, Tramper J, Martens DE

Abstract

Neisseria meningitidis is a human pathogen that can infect diverse sites within the human host. The major diseases caused by N. meningitidis are responsible for death and disability, especially in young infants. In general, most of the recent work on N. meningitidis focuses on potential antigens and their functions, immunogenicity, and pathogenicity mechanisms. Very little work has been carried out on Neisseria primary metabolism over the past 25 years. Using the genomic database of N. meningitidis serogroup B together with biochemical and physiological information in the literature we constructed a genome-scale flux model for the primary metabolism of N. meningitidis. The validity of a simplified metabolic network derived from the genome-scale metabolic network was checked using flux-balance analysis in chemostat cultures. Several useful predictions were obtained from in silico experiments, including substrate preference. A minimal medium for growth of N. meningitidis was designed and tested successfully in batch and chemostat cultures. The verified metabolic model describes the primary metabolism of N. meningitidis in a chemostat in steady state. The genome-scale model is valuable because it offers a framework to study N. meningitidis metabolism as a whole, or certain aspects of it, and it can also be used for the purpose of vaccine process development (for example, the design of growth media). The flux distribution of the main metabolic pathways (that is, the pentose phosphate pathway and the Entner-Douderoff pathway) indicates that the major part of pyruvate (69%) is synthesized through the ED-cleavage, a finding that is in good agreement with literature.

MeSH Terms
Computational Biology Genome, Bacterial Metabolic Networks and Pathways/genetics Models, Biological Neisseria meningitidis/genetics,metabolism
Authors & Affiliations
7 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Baart Gino J E
Unit Research & Development, Netherlands Vaccine Institute (NVI), PO Box 457, 3720 AL Bilthoven, The Netherlands. [email protected]
Zomer Bert
de Haan Alex
van der Pol Leo A
Beuvery E Coen
Tramper Johannes
Martens Dirk E
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Article Info
Journal
Genome biology
Abbr.
Genome Biol
ISSN
1474-760X
DOI
10.1186/gb-2007-8-7-r136
Email
[email protected]
Published
2007-00-00
Pages
R136
Language
English
Region
England
NLM ID
100960660
PMCID
PMC2323225
Subset
IM
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1186/gb-2007-8-7-r136 PMC Full Text View journal details
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