Relationship between topology and functions in metabolic network evolution

Abstract

What is the relationship between the topological connections among enzymes and their functions during metabolic network evolution? Does this relationship show similarity among closely related organisms? Here we investigated the relationship between enzyme connectivity and functions in metabolic networks of chloroplast and its endosymbiotic ancestor, cyanobacteria (Synechococcus sp. WH8102). Also several other species, including E. coli, Arabidopsis thaliana and Cyanidioschyzon merolae, were used for the comparison. We found that the average connectivity among different functional pathways and enzyme classifications (EC) was different in all the species examined. However, the average connectivity of enzymes in the same functional classification was quite similar between chloroplast and one representative of cyanobacteria, syw. In addition, the enzymes in the highly conserved modules between chloroplast and syw, such as amino acid metabolism, were highly connected compared with other modules. We also discovered that the isozymes of chloroplast and syw often had higher connectivity, corresponded to primary metabolism and also existed in conserved module. In conclusion, despite the drastic re-organization of metabolism in chloroplast during endosymbiosis, the relationship between network topology and functions is very similar between chloroplast and its precursor cyanobacteria, which demonstrates that the relationship may be used as an indicator of the closeness in evolution.