Genome-Scale Model Management and Comparison

Spurred by recent innovations in genome sequencing, the reconstruction of genome-scale models has increased in recent years. Genome-scale models are now available for a wide range of organisms, and models have been successfully applied to a number of research topics including metabolic engineering, genome annotation, biofuel production, and interpretation of omics data sets. The challenge is how to manage the large amount of data in genome-scale models and perform comparative analysis to gain new biological insights. In this chapter, important standards for genome-scale modeling are outlined. Furthermore, management strategies as well as existing repository and construction tools are discussed. As the comparison of models is an important aspect during the development and analysis stages, available methods are presented and existing software solutions are reviewed.