Designer metabolic pathways in the teaching laboratory

Designer or artificial metabolic pathways are simple, cheap and readily available in the form of enzyme reagent kits for the determination of different biomolecules. Such kits can be easily adapted for use in the teaching laboratory and used to illustrate a variety of important concepts in metabolism and enzymology, including coupled reactions, pathway mapping, competition, anoxia, compartmentalization and effects of pH and temperature. Such experiments can be conducted in a fraction of the time that would be needed for procedures using sub-cellular preparations from animals or plants.