Isotopically Nonstationary MFA

During his postdoctoral training, Dr. Young developed a novel MFA approach that uses transient isotope labeling experiments to determine metabolic fluxes, which is called isotopically nonstationary MFA (INST-MFA). Although the INST-MFA concept had been previously introduced by other groups, suitable computational tools for solving the large systems of ODEs that describe unsteady-state isotopomer balances were lacking. By applying an efficient decomposition of the isotopomer balance equations, an algorithm was developed that provides approximately 5000-fold computational speedup relative to previous approaches, thus making INST-MFA feasible for biologically relevant networks (Young et al., Biotechnol Bioeng 99:686–99, 2008). The Young group has developed two software packages called INCA and ETA that automate the model generation and computational routines required to perform steady-state MFA and INST-MFA. Both programs will be released into the public domain in the near future.

Funding support: Discovery Award, NSF EFRI (Dick Sayre, PI)
Graduate students: Taylor Murphy, Lara Jazmin
Key collaborators: Yonina Eldar (Technion), John Morgan (Purdue), Doug Allen (Donald Danforth Plant Science Center)