MOTIVATION: A critical component of in silico analysis of underdetermined metabolic systems is the identification of the appropriate objective function. A common assumption is that the objective of the cell is to maximize growth. This objective function has been shown to be consistent in a few limited experimental cases, but may not be universally appropriate. Here a method is presented to quantitatively determine the most probable objective function. RESULTS: The genome-scale metabolism of Escherichia coli growing on succinate was used as a case-study for analysis. Five different objective functions, including maximization of growth rate, were chosen based on biological plausibility. A combination of flux balance analysis and linear programming was used to simulate cellular metabolism, which was then compared to independent experimental data using a Bayesian objective function discrimination technique. After comparing rates of oxygen uptake and acetate production, minimization of the production rate of redox potential was determined to be the most probable objective function. Given the appropriate reaction network and experimental data, the discrimination technique can be applied to any bacterium to test a variety of different possible objective functions. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Additional files, code and a program for carrying out model discrimination are available at http://www.engr.uconn.edu/~srivasta/modisc.html.

MOTIVATION: Since the identification of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) over twenty years ago, many mathematical models of HIV dynamics have been proposed. The purpose of this study was to evaluate intracellular and intercellular scale HIV models that best described the dynamics of viral and cell titers of a person, where parameters were determined using typically available patient data. In this case, 'best' was defined as the model most capable of describing experimental patient data and was determined by Bayesian-based model discrimination analysis and the ability to provide realistic results. RESULTS: Twenty models of HIV-1 viral dynamics were initially evaluated to determine whether parameters could be obtained from readily available clinical data from established HIV-1 patients with stable disease. Based on this analysis, three models were chosen for further examination and comparison. Parameters were estimated using experimental data from a cohort of 338 people monitored for up to 2484 days. The models were evaluated using a Bayesian technique to determine which model was most probable. The model ultimately selected as most probable was overwhelmingly favored relative to the remaining two models, and it accounted for uninfected cells, infected cells and cytotoxic T lymphocyte dynamics. The authors developed a fourth model for comparison purposes by combining the features of the original three models. Parameters were estimated for the new model and the statistical analysis was repeated for all four models. The model that was initially favored was selected again upon model discrimination analysis. CONTACT: [email protected].