Towards a genome-scale metabolic model for the Kluyveromyces lactis yeast

Abstract

The interest in Kluyveromyces lactis (K. lactis) has begun in academia due to its ability to metabolize the betaglycoside (1). Since then, this yeast has been considered a model organism for studies in genetics and physiology (2). This yeast had its genome sequenced back in 2004 (3) and recently we have published a full metabolic re-annotation of its genome (4). This re-annotation can be used, among other applications, to reconstruct genome-scale metabolic models. These models allow anticipating a given organism's phenotype from its genome sequence. The reconstruction of biochemical networks is, currently, a valid alternative to microorganisms modelling as the output provided by the in silico simulations permits focusing on experiments with promising results. Thus, we propose a new fully compartmentalised genome-scale metabolic model for K. lactis, the iOD1759 which comprises 1759 metabolic genes.