Visual workflows for C-metabolic flux analysis

Motivation: The precise quantification of intracellular metabolic flow rates is of fundamental importance in bio(techno)logy and medical research. The gold standard in the field is metabolic flux analysis (MFA) with C-labeling experiments. C-MFA workflows orchestrate several, mainly human-in-the-loop, software applications, integrating them with plenty of heterogeneous information. In practice, this had posed a major practical barrier for evaluating, interpreting and understanding isotopic data from carbon labeling experiments. Results: Graphical modeling, interactive model exploration and visual data analysis are the key to overcome this limitation. We have developed a first-of-its-kind graphical tool suite providing scientists with an integrated software framework for all aspects of C-MFA. Almost 30 modules (plug-ins) have been implemented for the Omix visualization software. Several advanced graphical workflows and ergonomic user interfaces support major domain-specific modeling and proofreading tasks. With that, the graphical suite is a productivity enhancing tool and an original educational training instrument supporting the adoption of C-MFA applications in all life science fields.