In the present work we have modelled and optimized the reaction mechanism of the triose phosphate isomerase (TIM) enzyme (E.C. 5.3.1.1). For this purpose we have used an approach that combines the S-system representation within the power law formalism and linear programming techniques. By this means we have explored those rate constants whose alterations are likely to improve the catalytic efficiency of the enzyme and investigated the available room for optimization in different metabolic conditions. The role and plausibility of the different types of mutations on the evolution of this enzyme have also been considered.
Steady state sensitivity analysis was carried out and a new set of aggregated logarithmic gains was defined in order to quantify the responses of the system to changes in groups of rate constants that could be explained in terms of mutations affecting the catalytic properties of the enzyme. Evaluation of these logarithmic gains at different levels of saturation and disequilibrium ratios enabled us to reach conclusions about the meaning and role of the diffusion limitation terms.
The catalytic efficiency of the monoenzymatic system was optimized through changes in the kinetic rate constants within different sets of restrictions ranging from thermodynamic or kinetic to evolutionary ones. Results showed that, at very different conditions, there is still room for improvement in the TIM enzyme. Thus, in a wide range of metabolically significant values of the disequilibrium ratio there is a minimal variation in the optimal profile that yields 2.1 times the velocity of the basal states. Though most of this increase is accounted for by the increase of the second order constants (that could have already reached a theoretical maximum) significant increases (20%) in catalytic efficiencies are obtained by changes of the internal steps only. Besides these new findings our optimization approach has been able to reproduce results obtained with other approaches.