Estimation of kinetic parameters in a structured yeast model using regularisation

In this work, a procedure for estimating kinetic parameters in biochemically structured models was developed. The approach is applicable when the structure of a kinetic model has been set up and the kinetic parameters should be estimated. The procedure consists of five steps. First, initial values were found in or calculated from literature. Hereafter using sensitivity analysis the most sensitive parameters were identified. In the third step physiological knowledge was combined with the parameter sensitivities to manually tune the most sensitive parameters. In step four, a global optimisation routine was applied for simultaneous estimation of the most sensitive parameters identified during the sensitivity analysis. Regularisation was included in the simultaneous estimation to reduce the effect of insensitive parameters. Finally, confidence intervals for the estimated parameters were calculated. This parameter estimation approach was demonstrated on a biochemically structured yeast model. containing 11 reactions and 37 kinetic constants as a case study. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.