Synthesis of biochemical production routes

The problem of synthesizing biochemical pathways that satisfy linear stoichiometric constraints is discussed. An algorithm for the solution of the problem is presented, based on the iterative satisfaction of requirements, and the trasformation of the initial set of available bioreactions (which can be thought of as one-step pathways) into a final set of pathways that satisfy all the requirements. At each step, in order to satisfy a particular constraint, new pathways are constructed from pairs of existing pathways, while some of the existing pathways are deleted. The set of active pathways is thus modified to satisfy each constraint; after all constraints are processed, the remaining pathways comprise a concise description of the set of solutions. The algorithm is correct and complete and has satisfactory computational performance for carefully formulated problems.