The Response of the Metabolic Network of the Red Blood Cell to Pyruvate Kinase Deficiency

The response of the metabolic network of human red blood cell is investigated using the E-Cell simulation system when pyruvate kinase (PK) is deficient. The results that several downstream metabolites of the glycolysis pathway accumulate are in a good agreement with experimental data reported in literatures. This accumulation results in the reaction that phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) catalyzes reversing its direction. Mathematical analysis to the simulation results shows that the PGK-catalyzing reaction reversing its direction happens simultaneously with an abrupt change of the second derivative of the ATP quantity.