Visual workflows for 13C-metabolic flux analysis.

Abstract

The precise quantification of intracellular metabolic flow rates is of fundamental importance in bio(techno)logy and medical research. The gold standard in the field is metabolic flux analysis (MFA) with 13C-labeling experiments. 13C-MFA workflows orchestrate several, mainly human-in-the-loop, software applications, integrating them with plenty of heterogeneous information. In practice, this had posed a major practical barrier for evaluating, interpreting and understanding isotopic data from carbon labeling experiments. Graphical modeling, interactive model exploration and visual data analysis are the key to overcome this limitation. We have developed a first-of-its-kind graphical tool suite providing scientists with an integrated software framework for all aspects of 13C-MFA. Almost 30 modules (plug-ins) have been implemented for the Omix visualization software. Several advanced graphical workflows and ergonomic user interfaces support major domain-specific modeling and proofreading tasks. With that, the graphical suite is a productivity enhancing tool and an original educational training instrument supporting the adoption of 13C-MFA applications in all life science fields. The Omix Light Edition is freely available at http://www.omix-visualization.com k.noeh@fz-juelich.de, p.droste@omix-visualization.com Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.