Recon 2 – a new version of the interactive map of human metabolism
Based on the results previously obtained by researchers at the University of California at San Diego, an international consortium of university scientists has compiled the most detailed virtual reconstruction of human metabolism to date. This model, called Recon 2, can be used to identify the causes and develop new treatments for diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and even psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases.
The metabolism, or metabolism, of each person, which consists in converting food products into energy and tissues, is determined by genetic factors, environmental influences and the quality of nutrition. For a long time, doctors have recognized the exceptional importance of metabolic disorders in the development of diseases. And the data obtained in recent years by researchers, including those working on the so-called "Human Genome Project" and in the field of systems biology, increasingly support this belief.
Developers compare Recon 2 with maps created by Google, as they allow you to combine many small details into a single interactive map. For example, specialists studying the role of metabolism in the formation of conditions favorable for tumor growth can "approximate" a certain fragment of the map to obtain detailed images of individual metabolic reactions, or move it away in order to understand the relationships between different signaling mechanisms and fragments of metabolism.
Researchers have already demonstrated the practicality and functionality of such multilevel models of the metabolism of simple organisms such as yeast and E.coli. These models made it possible to create strains of microorganisms capable of synthesizing large amounts of various compounds, such as ethanol, as well as predict the development of drug resistance in bacteria.
One of the most promising areas of application of Recon 2 is to determine the expression levels of certain genes, as well as the metabolic pathways in which their protein products are involved, for the subsequent development of targeted drug delivery methods. Currently, there are already large databases containing information about the expression of genes in human cells exposed to active ingredients used in clinical practice and experimental drugs. Recon 2 allows specialists to use these available data in order to find out how certain drugs can affect certain metabolic mechanisms, for example, favoring the growth of malignant tumors. They get the opportunity to conduct virtual experiments demonstrating the ability of drugs to restore metabolic disorders underlying the development of diseases.
Recon 1 – the prototype of Recon 2 – was created in 2007 by six scientists from the University of California, working under the guidance of Professor Bernhard Palsson. It included more than 3,300 known metabolic reactions, information about which had been accumulated over the previous 50 years. When Recon 2 was created, this number of "mapped" metabolic reactions increased to more than 7,400. Recon 2 is publicly available on the Recon x website.
According to Ines Thiele, who headed the consortium, a former graduate of the University of California, currently working at the University of Iceland, Recon 2 has already proven its functionality. With its help, metabolic disorders have been successfully identified, which are currently used for the diagnosis of hereditary metabolic diseases.
Professor Thiele believes that this fundamental resource will undoubtedly make many valuable predictions that will accelerate the transition of the results of scientific experiments into clinical practice. According to her, the ultimate goal of creating Recon 2 is to use it to personalize diagnosis and treatment. In the future, doctors will be able to create individual metabolic schemes for their patients based on it and select optimal therapeutic approaches for them to treat various diseases, including diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
The creators of Recon 2 admit that there is still a lot of work ahead, since, despite a significant improvement over Recon 1, it contains information about only 1,800 of the approximately 20,000 protein-coding genes of the human genome.
At the top is the central part of the map, at the bottom is its current version, Recon 2.
Imagine for yourself how a complete map of all the metabolic pathways of the human body will look like.
Article by Ines Thiele et al. A community-driven global reconstruction of human metabolism is published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of UC San Diego:
International consortium builds 'Google Map' of human metabolism.
05.03.2013