Abstract:
The MetaCyc database (see URL http://MetaCyc.org/
) is a collection of metabolic pathways and enzymes from a
wide variety of organisms, primarily microorganisms and
plants. The goal of MetaCyc is to contain a representative
sample of each experimentally elucidated pathway, and thereby
to catalog the universe of metabolism. MetaCyc also describes
reactions, chemical compounds, and genes. Many of the pathways
and enzymes in MetaCyc contain extensive information,
including comments and literature citations. SRI's Pathway
Tools software supports querying, visualization, and curation
of MetaCyc. MetaCyc serves two roles in metabolic
engineering. It is a readily accessible comprehensive
resource on microbial and plant enzymes that can be inserted
into other species. In addition, MetaCyc is the
reference database of pathways and enzymes that is used in
conjunction with SRI's metabolic pathway prediction program to
predict the metabolic network of an organism from its
annotated genome. Qualitative models of a metabolic network
are an important step toward metabolic engineering.
The talk will propose an
initiative to determine sequences for the many biochemically
characterized enzymes for which no sequence has ever been
determined. Such enzymes cannot at present be recognized
in a sequenced genome, and are not accessible to genetic
engineering techniques.
The talk will present a status
report on the BioPAX standard for exchange of metabolic
information.
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