Abstract: The purpose of this work is to illustrate the relationship between genotype and phenotype in the complex cellular network of saccharomyces cerevisiae. As a structureoriented method, using elementary flux mode(EFM) analysis can obtain its popularity in analysis of the robustness of the central metabolism, as well as network function of some organisms. However, this method has not been widely used for modeling gene deletion phenotype. By enumerating all the metabolic pathways, the EFM analysis presented herein can be used to identify the functional features and predict the growth phenotype of the S. cerevisiae. In comparison with the flux balance analysis(FBA), the performance of EFM analysis was superior to FBA in prediction of gene deletion phenotype. EFM analysis is demonstrated to be an effective tool for bridging the gap between metabolic network and growth phenotype.

Key words: Prediction, Elementary flux mode, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Growth phenotype