ABSTRACT
The conversion of metabolic pathway representation from chart to computer form has led to several separate databases, mostly in the public domain. The calculations, while modest, require a computer and can provide insight into acid base balance that is otherwise difficult using simplifications such as the Henderson–Hasselbach equation. A long tradition of computers used to solve simultaneous differential equations in metabolism has provided models of major routes of intermediary metabolism. Metabolic control analysis is operationally complex, involving mathematics that is beyond what most biological investigators are comfortable with. For example, the view that near-equilibrium enzymes like glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase is rate-limiting is unlikely, despite elegant metabolic control analysis. The excitement stems from the fact that typically metabolites are measured a few at a time and the available information is thereby somewhat limited in scope. Fu et al. found a defect in the formation of phosphatidylcholine from phosphatidylethanolamine in obesity from the metabolite patterns.
