University of Trieste, OGS, ICTP, Trieste, ITALY
Exergy analysis and exergy cost analysis of metabolic network
Host: S. Zacchigna
Abstract
Biochemical networks are central to the flow of energy and matter in living cells and cell communities, governing the behavior and functionality of biological systems. While traditional approaches have
provided valuable insights, a thermodynamic perspective based on exergy analysis and exergy cost theory offers a framework to decode the efficiency and optimization of cellular metabolism. This study bridges theoretical and practical aspects of exergy- based methodologies, providing a quantitative approach to assess energy transformations, resource consumption, and irreversibility in biochemical networks. Through the development and application of exergy cost theory, the study quantifies the thermodynamic investments of the metabolic pathways necessary for specific cellular processes, offering a deeper understanding of metabolic efficiency. The framework is applied to glucose metabolism, demonstrating that glucose breakdown is highly efficient from an exergetic perspective, with irreversibility localized primarily in ATP synthase activity. The methodology not only evaluates the exergy efficiency of individual metabolic steps but also identifies the unit exergy costs of key energy vectors, highlighting the different thermodynamic efforts required by the metabolic network. This approach advances the understanding of cellular energy management and provides a tool for potentially optimizing metabolic pathways in bioengineering and biotechnology applications. By extending this pproach to cell communities, this work lays the groundwork for a unified understanding of energy and matter flow in biological systems, offering new keys for understanding metabolic network behavior and addressing global challenges in sustainability and health. Keywords: Exergy cost theory, exergy analysis, glucose breakdown pathways, unit exergy cost, biological systems.
International Seminar Programme
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