Genome-scale metabolic network reconstruction of model animals as a platform for translational research
Hao Wang, Jonathan L. Robinson, Pınar Kocabaş, Johan Gustafsson, Mihail Anton, Pierre‐Etienne Cholley, Shan Huang, Johan Gobom, Thomas Svensson, Mathias Uhlén, Henrik Zetterberg, Jens Nielsen
Abstract
). These GEMs represent the most comprehensive coverage of the metabolic network by considering both orthology-based pathways and species-specific reactions. All GEMs can be interactively queried via the accompanying web portal Metabolic Atlas. Specifically, through integrative analysis of Mouse1 with RNA-sequencing data from brain tissues of transgenic mice we identified a coordinated up-regulation of lysosomal GM2 ganglioside and peptide degradation pathways which appears to be a signature metabolic alteration in Alzheimer's disease (AD) mouse models with a phenotype of amyloid precursor protein overexpression. This metabolic shift was further validated with proteomics data from transgenic mice and cerebrospinal fluid samples from human patients. The elevated lysosomal enzymes thus hold potential to be used as a biomarker for early diagnosis of AD. Taken together, we foresee that this evolving open-source platform will serve as an important resource to facilitate the development of systems medicines and translational biomedical applications.