Flow analysis of metabolite fragments for ux estimation
Flux estimation using isotopic tracers is currently the only method that can give quantitative estimated of the activity of metabolic pathways. The success of these methods, however, is intimately dependent on the quality and amount of data on isotopomer distributions of intermediate metabolites. In this paper we present a novel method for discovering sets of metabolite fragments that always have identical isotopomer distributions, regardless of the velocities of the reactions in the metabolic network. Our preliminary computational experiments indicate that the sets can help in the propagation of isotopomer data in the network and thus ease the requirements posed to measurement technology. The sets have potential of being useful in other tasks of flux estimation, too.