Summary: We present a Systems Biology Toolbox for the widely used general purpose mathematical software MATLAB. The toolbox offers systems biologists an open and extensible environment, in which to explore ideas, prototype and share new algorithms, and build applications for the analysis and simulation of biological and biochemical systems. Additionally it is well suited for educational purposes. The toolbox supports the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) by providing an interface for import and export of SBML models. In this way the toolbox connects nicely to other SBML-enabled modelling packages. Models are represented in an internal model format and can be described either by entering ordinary differential equations or, more intuitively, by entering biochemical reaction equations. The toolbox contains a large number of analysis methods, such as deterministic and stochastic simulation, parameter estimation, network identification, parameter sensitivity analysis and bifurcation analysis. Availability: The Systems Biology Toolbox for MATLAB is open source and freely available from . The website also contains a tutorial, extensive documentation and examples. Contact:henning@fcc.chalmers.se

An increasing number of industrial bioprocesses capitalize on living cells by using them as cell factories that convert sugars into chemicals. These processes range from the production of bulk chemicals in yeasts and bacteria to the synthesis of therapeutic proteins in mammalian cell lines. One of the tools in the continuous search for improved performance of such production systems is the development and application of mathematical models. To be of value for industrial biotechnology, mathematical models should be able to assist in the rational design of cell factory properties or in the production processes in which they are utilized. Kinetic models are particularly suitable towards this end because they are capable of representing the complex biochemistry of cells in a more complete way compared to most other types of models. They can, at least in principle, be used to in detail understand, predict, and evaluate the effects of adding, removing, or modifying molecular components of a cell factory and for supporting the design of the bioreactor or fermentation process. However, several challenges still remain before kinetic modeling will reach the degree of maturity required for routine application in industry. Here we review the current status of kinetic cell factory modeling. Emphasis is on modeling methodology concepts, including model network structure, kinetic rate expressions, parameter estimation, optimization methods, identifiability analysis, model reduction, and model validation, but several applications of kinetic models for the improvement of cell factories are also discussed.

Motivation: Modeling of dynamical systems using ordinary differential equations is a popular approach in the field of Systems Biology. The amount of experimental data that are used to build and calibrate these models is often limited. In this setting, the model parameters may not be uniquely determinable. Structural or a priori identifiability is a property of the system equations that indicates whether, in principle, the unknown model parameters can be determined from the available data. Results: We performed a case study using three current approaches for structural identifiability analysis for an application from cell biology. The approaches are conceptually different and are developed independently. The results of the three approaches are in agreement. We discuss strength and weaknesses of each of them and illustrate how they can be applied to real world problems. Availability and implementation: For application of the approaches to further applications, code representations (DAISY, Mathematica and MATLAB) for benchmark model and data are provided on the authors webpage. Contact:andreas.raue@fdm.uni-freiburg.de