Abstract

Metabolism is the set of biochemical reactions occurring in living organisms. Metabolites are usually small molecules like glucose, amino acids etc. These biochemical inter-conversions are generally catalyzed by enzymes. The sequencing of genomes and development of functional genomics make it now possible to reconstruct and understand the structure and function of metabolic networks at large scale. New computational tools and biological concepts are being developed to understand these metabolic networks more precisely. Here attempts were made for reconstruction, visualization, and graph representation of metabolic networks for structural analysis i.e. connectivity and centrality analyses, modularity and decomposition of the networks to fundamental level. Reconstruction, visualization, and graphical representation of glycolysis for structural analysis and decomposition of the network to fundamental is done as an example of basic metabolic network in cells. The methods and concepts presented deals with static properties and functions of glycolysis and more complex networks can be represented following similar methods.