Putting the “Control” in Metabolic Control Analysis

Abstract

Metabolic control analysis is a framework for characterizing the parametric sensitivity of metabolic pathways and genetic networks. We establish a connection between metabolic control analysis and control theory. The main result is that we can use classical control theory and the associated signal-flow (block) diagrams to analyze biochemical reaction networks and that many results in metabolic control analysis have direct counterparts in control In the process, we illustrate how some problems in biochemical network analysis can be reformulated in a control-theoretic framework.