EnzymeTuning: a Deep-learning-based Toolbox for Optimizing Enzyme-constrained Metabolic Modeling with Enhanced Proteome Abundance Prediction

AbstractThe accuracy of enzyme kinetic parameters, particularly the turnover number (kcat), is critical for the predictive power of enzyme-constrained genome-scale metabolic models (ecGEMs). However, current kinetic datasets remain sparse and often fail to capture in vivo enzyme behavior, compromising model predictive capacity. To address these challenges, we developed EnzymeTuning----a generative adversarial network (GAN)-based framework for the global kcat optimization. This approach significantly enhances both the accuracy and proteome-level coverage of ecGEM predictions. Moreover, by incorporating literature-derived protein degradation constants (kdeg), we inferred the protein synthesis rate and systematically evaluated their impact on model performance. The framework was validated across distinct yeast species, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Kluyveromyces lactis, Kluyveromyces marxianus, and Yarrowia lipolytica, demonstrating its generalizability. Further, we found that EnzymeTuning facilitates the identification of context-specific enzyme usage patterns and adaptive catalytic resource allocation under varying carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratios, showcasing the substantial potential of our toolbox for integrative omics analysis. Overall, EnzymeTuning provides a robust and scalable solution for refining kinetic parameters in ecGEMs, thereby promoting the wide applications of these computational models in systems and synthetic biological studies.