GREEN CAR CONGRESS - Researchers at UC Riverside and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have used mathematical and computational modeling, artificial intelligence algorithms and experiments showing that bacteria have failsafe mechanisms preventing them from producing too many metabolic intermediates.
Metabolic intermediates are the chemicals that couple each reaction to one another in metabolism. Key to these control mechanisms are enzymes, which speed up chemical reactions involved in biological functions such as growth and energy production. The insight could lead to organisms that are more efficient at converting plants into biofuels. The open-access study appears in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.