Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-biochemistry-and-molecular-biology-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2025/paper-2/section-b/12/f/solution

The reported coefficients add to
For a complete set of independently scaled activities controlling a steady-state flux, the flux summation theorem gives , where . One way to see this is to scale all reaction capacities by the same factor: steady-state concentrations can remain the same while all fluxes scale by that factor, so the summed logarithmic sensitivities equal one. The listed processes therefore leave a net coefficient of about unaccounted for under the model assumptions. Measurement uncertainty, imperfect inhibitor specificity or incompatible measurements could also contribute to the discrepancy. Control is distributed; neither the sum nor the largest individual coefficient identifies a single universal rate-limiting step.

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