Frequently Asked Questions

How do I search for a metabolite?

You often need to input long metabolite names, but it could raise spelling problems. However, when you put a part of metabolite name, we will provide some suggestions, then you can choose one in the suggested names.


There is no pathway I found whenever I input metabolite names. Is there any problem with that?

After we constructed reaction metabolic network, we calculated all existent pathways. 3990 metabolites are included in this network. Thus, theorical possible pairs of metabolite are 3990 x 3989 = about 16 millions. Of these pairs, only 9 millions have pathway. Therefore, you cannot find pathway in a 44 percent chance. To support user's search, we have planed suggestion of possible pathway containing similar metabolite you would enter.


There is no pathway I found whenever I input metabolite names. Is there any problem with that?

At now, you should search the pathways with metabolite name yet. However, we will deal with this issue as soon as possible, so you can search the shortest path through chemical formular in a short time.


References
  1. Marnix H. Medema et al. 2012. Computational tools for the synthetic design of biochemical pathways. Nature Reviews. 10:191-202
  2. Ayoun Cho et al. 2010. Prediction of novel synthetic pathways for the production of desired chemicals. BMC Systems Biology. 4:35
  3. Pablo Carbonell et al. 2011. A retrosynthetic biology approach to metabloic pathway design for therapeutic production. BMC Systems Biology. 5:122
  4. Chih-Hung Chou et al. 2009. FMM: a web server for metabolic pathway reconstruction and comparative analysis. Nucleic Acids Research. 37:129-134