Evolution of Central Metabolic Pathways: The Playground of Non-orthologous Gene Displacement

Abstract

One of the central goals of functional genomics is the complete reconstruction of the metabolic pathways of the organisms, for which genome sequences have been obtained. As discussed in Chapter 1, there is no chance that all necessary biochemical experiments are ever done in any substantial number of organisms. Therefore reconstructions made through comparative genomics, combined with the knowledge derived from experiments on model systems, are the only realistic path to a satisfactory understanding of the biochemical diversity of life and to the characterization of poorly studied and hard-to-grow organisms (including extremely important ones, e.g. the syphilis spirochete T. pallidum [243,887]).