MRAD: Metabolic Reaction Analysis Database – An Entity-Relationship Approach

The Metabolic Reaction Analysis Database (MRAD) is a relational database based on the Entity-Relationship (ER) model which combines information about organisms, biochemical pathways, reactions, enzymes, substrates, products and genes. It describes 244,596 genes in 79 organisms, 6,552 enzymes, and 3,552 reactions, 3,100 substrates, 2,866 products and 118 metabolic pathways. The MRAD graphical user interface allows for the identification of metabolic reactions which are similar and dissimilar in multiple organisms, reactions in a pathway which are missing in an organism and using any combination between one to six of the biological entities of organisms, genes, pathways, enzymes, substrates and products to determine metabolic reactions. MRAD provides a powerful and efficient tool for the construction of flux balance models for metabolic engineering applications.