An evaluation of minimal cellular functions to sustain a bacterial cell.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Both computational and experimental approaches have been used to determine the minimal gene set required to sustain a bacterial cell. Such studies have provided clues to the minimal cellular-function set needed for life. We evaluate a minimal cellular-function set directly, instead of a geneset.

Results

We estimated the essentialities of KEGG pathway maps as the entities of cellular functions, based on comparative genomics and metabolic network analyses. The former examined the evolutionary conservation of each pathway map by homology searches, and detected "conserved pathway maps". The latter identified "organism-specific pathway maps" that supply compounds required for the conserved pathway maps. We defined both pathway maps as "autonomous pathway maps". Among t

SUBMITTER: Azuma Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2789071 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature