Overexpression of key genes is a basic strategy for overproducing target products via metabolic engineering. Traditionally, identifying those key genes/pathways largely relies on the knowledge of biochemistry and bioinformatics. In this study, a modeling tool named UP Finder was developed to facilitate the rapid identification of gene overexpression strategies. It was based on the COBRA toolbox under MATLAB environment. All the key gene/pathway targets are identified in one click after simply loading a Systems Biology Markup Language model and specifying a metabolite as the targeted product. The outputs are also quantitatively ranked to show the preference for determining overexpression strategies in pathway design. Analysis examples for overproducing lycopene precursor in Escherichia coli and fatty acyl-ACP in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 by the UP Finder showed high degree of agreement with the reported key genes in the literatures.
Keywords: COBRA toolbox; Gene overexpression strategy; Metabolic engineering; Rational pathway design; Targeted overproduction.