An integrated model quantitatively describing metabolism, growth and cell cycle in budding yeast

Computational models are expected to increase understanding of how complex biological functions arise from the interactions of large numbers of gene products and biologically active low molecular weight molecules. Recent studies underline the need to develop quantitative models of the whole cell in order to tackle this challenge and to accelerate biological discoveries. In this work we describe three major functions of a yeast cell: Metabolism, Growth and Cycle, through two coarse grain models, MeGro (Metabolism + Growth) and GroCy (Growth + Cycle). GroCy effectively recapitulates major phenotypic properties of cells grown in glucose and ethanol supplement media. MeGro can act as a parameter generator for GroCy. The resulting iMeGroCy integrated model can be used as a scaffold for molecularly detailed models of yeast functions.