Incorporating Protein Biosynthesis into the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Genome-scale Metabolic Model

Based on stoichiometric biochemical equations that occur into the cell, the genome-scale metabolic models can quantify the metabolic fluxes, which are regarded as the final representation of the physiological state of the cell. For Saccharomyces Cerevisiae the genome scale model has been constructed considering the metabolic reactions from mitochondria and cytosol; the set of reactions comprised in the central carbon and biosynthetics pathways. Nevertheless, this model do not account for the protein synthesis process present in the cell that consume the majority of total energy produced by a rapidly growing cell. To extend the model including protein synthesis, from the survey of the available literature was possible to identify a few enzymatic reactions and gene functions in the early steps of gene expression for proteins: mRNA transcription, mRNA processing, mRNA export out of the nucleus, translation initiation, translation elongation, translation termination, translation elongation, and mRNA decay. Considering these information from the mechanisms of transcription and translation, we will include this stoichiometric reactions into the genome scale model for S. Cerevisiae to obtain the first set of in silico experiments that take place in the generation of the polypeptide chain that is the genesis of the future active protein.