Analyzing the core of E. coli metabolism with flux balance

With the increasing number of genome-scale metabolic networks reconstructed, computational methods are increasingly important in investigation of the networks. Due to it only needs topology and stoichiometry informations, flux balance method has attracted so much attention nowadays. The present paper studied optimal growth rates, optimal flux distributions and gene deletion simulation for the core of E. coli metabolism (iAF1260 model) based on the method. The results could be used in E. coli metabolic engineering.