Striking a balance with Recon 2.1

Abstract: Recon 2 is a highly curated reconstruction of the human metabolic network. Whilst the network is state of the art, it has shortcomings, including the presence of unbalanced reactions involving generic metabolites. By replacing these generic molecules with each of their specific instances, we can ensure full elemental balancing, in turn allowing constraint-based analyses to be performed. The resultant model, called Recon 2.1, is an order of magnitude larger than the original.