Simulating Serial-Target Antibacterial Drug Synergies Using Flux Balance Analysis.

PLoS One
Authors
Keywords
Abstract

Flux balance analysis (FBA) is an increasingly useful approach for modeling the behavior of metabolic systems. However, standard FBA modeling of genetic knockouts cannot predict drug combination synergies observed between serial metabolic targets, even though such synergies give rise to some of the most widely used antibiotic treatments. Here we extend FBA modeling to simulate responses to chemical inhibitors at varying concentrations, by diverting enzymatic flux to a waste reaction. This flux diversion yields very similar qualitative predictions to prior methods for single target activity. However, we find very different predictions for combinations, where flux diversion, which mimics the kinetics of competitive metabolic inhibitors, can explain serial target synergies between metabolic enzyme inhibitors that we confirmed in Escherichia coli cultures. FBA flux diversion opens the possibility for more accurate genome-scale predictions of drug synergies, which can be used to suggest treatments for infections and other diseases.

Year of Publication
2016
Journal
PLoS One
Volume
11
Issue
1
Pages
e0147651
Date Published
2016
ISSN
1932-6203
URL
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0147651
PubMed ID
26821252
PubMed Central ID
PMC4731467
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