Number of metabolites per cell

Value 3e+8 Copies/cell
Organism Bacteria Escherichia coli
Reference Calculated from E. coli cellular metabolite concentration of 300 mM (Primary source)
Primary Source Bennett BD, Kimball EH, Gao M, Osterhout R, Van Dien SJ, Rabinowitz JD. Absolute metabolite concentrations and implied enzyme active site occupancy in Escherichia coli. Nat Chem Biol. 2009 Aug5(8):593-9 Table - link PubMed ID19561621
Method The total observed intracellular metabolite pool was approximately 300 mM (BNID 104 678, primary source). Concentration of 1nM in a cell volume of 1 µm^3 corresponds to one molecule/cell (BNID 102 068), concentration of 300mM corresponds to 3X10^8 molecules/cell. Measurement method of primary source: Researchers quantified metabolites by Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) using an isotope ratio-based approach (8). As isotope-labeled standards for many metabolites are not available, they used uniformly 13C-labeled glucose medium to label the intracellular metabolome of E. coli (25). This enabled the use of commercially available unlabeled compounds as internal standards.
Comments A small number of metabolites dominate the metabolome on a molar basis, with glutamate being the most abundant.
Entered by Ron Milo, Paul Jorgensen, Mike Springer
ID 100125