Experimental Analysis of Metabolism

By inactivating individual enzymes, mutations and enzyme inhibitors help identify the metabolic roles of enzymes.

The steps of a hypothetical metabolic pathway are identified by analysis of mutants defective in individual steps of the pathway.

We can identify metabolite C as the substrate for enzyme III by the absence of this enzyme in mutants that accumulate C.

We know that D and E follow C in the pathway because feeding either D or E to mutants defective in enzyme III bypasses the genetic block and allows the cells to grow.