BioAcyl Corp

Cellular metabolic memory. (A) Hopfield-like attractor dynamics can emerge in metabolic networks. They have the capacity to store functional catalytic patterns which can be correctly recovered by specific input stimuli. These metabolic dynamics are stable and can be maintained as long-term memory. Specific information associated with these memories can be transferred to the enzymatic processes involved in covalent post-translational modulation. Thus, specific functional stored information can be reversibly embedded in the form of structural molecular marks. These two dynamical processes, storing of catalytic patterns in the form of metabolic attractors (functional processes) and stabilizing metabolic information as molecular marks (structural processes), represent the two stages of the dynamic memory of cellular metabolism. (B) Between the extracellular environment and DNA, there appears to exist a cellular metabolic structure (CMS) which behaves as a very complex decentralized information processing system with the capacity to store metabolic memory (A). The CMS generates sets of biochemical instructions that make each enzymatic activity evolve with a particular and precise dynamic of change, allowing self-regulation and adaptation to the external medium. In addition, the CMS permanently sends a flow of molecular signals to DNA-associated metabolism, which shapes the complex transcriptional system. These molecular flows allow accurate regulation of gene expression, so that only specific polypeptides that are required for adaptive maintenance of the CMS are synthesized. Together, both informative systems (CMS and DNA) coordinate the physiological development of the cell. I: determinative molecular flux for the regulation of the transcriptional system. II: polypeptide reposition. TS: transcriptional system. The CMS is represented by a network. Red circles, metabolic core; green circles, on-off metabolic processes.