Evaluation of B. subtilis Growth and Surfactin Production using Elementary Mode Analysis

Elementary mode analysis is one of the well known tools for metabolic pathway analysis. The set of elementary modes contains all routes converting a certain metabolite (substrate) to a product. We firstly selected a biochemical reaction network consisting of 68 reactions and 66 metabolites for B. subtilis and evaluated the effect of six substrates namely, sucrose, glucose, glycerol, citrate, lactate and acetate on growth and surfactin production using elementary mode analysis. The elementary flux modes were then divided into aerobic and anaerobic modes for further analysis. Although apart from acetate all examined substrates supports growth and surfactin production aerobically, sucrose was the most efficient substrate. B. subtilis was shown not capable of growing anaerobically on glycerol, citrate, lactate and acetate.

Keywords:

Elementary Mode Analysis , Metabolic Network , B. subtilis , Growth , Surfactin Production