From owner-metabolic-reg@net.bio.net Sat May 15 20:05:00 1999 Path: biosci!news.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.dejanews.com!nnrp1.dejanews.com!not-for-mail From: fersht@my-dejanews.com Newsgroups: bionet.metabolic-reg Subject: Re: rate limiting vs rate determining Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 20:52:53 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. Lines: 89 Message-ID: <7hkmr4$i5v$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <3.0.1.32.19990507110212.006dd628@csmail.brookes.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 131.111.99.209 X-Article-Creation-Date: Sat May 15 20:32:05 1999 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Mac_PowerPC) X-Http-Proxy: 1.1 x32.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 131.111.99.209 In article , athel@ir2cbm.cnrs-mrs.fr (Athel Cornish-Bowden) wrote: > David wrote: > > >A postscript to the recent discussion on rate-determining steps. I've just > >been sent an inspection copy of 'Structure and Mechanism in Protein > >Science' by Alan Fersht, which at a quick glance looks like a useful book > >in the areas on which he is an expert. > > Very good in some aspects; very disappointing in others. Unfortunately it's > only too plain which parts of the subject don't interest him much. > > > >Unfortunately, in Chapter 10, section F, Regulation of metabolic pathways, > >p.308, he starts: > >"The rate of chemical flux through a metabolic pathway is often regulated > >by controlling the activity of a key enzyme in the pathway. The natural > >point of control is the enzyme whose catalytic activity is the > >rate-limiting step in the pathway." > > > >This is then followed by some of the 1960s concepts of identifying > >rate-limiting enzymes. At the end of the paragraph he does say > >"The flux through metabolic pathways is now studied by control analysis. > >(refs 39-44)" > >However, he gives no indication of what this means, and with all respect to > >those of my friends appearing in the cited literature, it does not seem to > >have been selected to give an overview of the field of control analysis. > > I had the same difficulty. In fact I found it very difficult to think of a > rationale for the selection; there doesn't seem to be any connecting link > between the six papers cited. Maybe it went something like this: > > Reviewer: I think you need to say something about metabolic control analysis. > Author: What's that? Never heard of it. > Reviewer: I don't have much idea either, but someone left me a list of > references the other day. > Author: How many? > Reviewer: About a hundred. > Author: I'm certainly not going to wade through all those. I'll just cite > some of the ones from 1997 and everyone will be impressed at how up to date > I am. > > > >Probably you won't be surprised to hear that the first example after this > >section is PFK. > > > Not too surprised, no. But it's a bit like reading a newspaper account of > some event you know about independently, when you wonder if journalists are > just as slapdash when they write about things you don't know about. > > Athel > Athel Sorry to spoil your reasoning. Such is the specialization in science nowadays that none of the half dozen reviewers had even heard of "Control analysis", which is a sad reflection. At least there will be a marker in my book to the subject, and the interested reader can --== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==-- ---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.--- .