J. S. Edwards coauthored the 2000 reconstruction of the Escherichia coli MG1655 metabolic network with B. O. Palsson. The work combined annotated sequence information with biochemical and strain-specific evidence to connect genes, enzymes and chemical reactions.[ref]
For example, deleting a reaction-associated gene from a model can remove a route to an essential metabolite, predicting a growth requirement that can be tested experimentally. Alternative routes may preserve growth. The contribution helped make genome annotation into a system whose predictions could be checked, while exposing assumptions and gaps in the underlying metabolic knowledge.
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