Section: New Software and Platforms

MiSCoTo

Microbiota Screening and COmmunity Selection with TOpology

Keywords: Metabolic networks - ASP - Answer Set Programming - Logic programming

Scientific Description: MiSCoTo solves combinatorial problems using Answer Set Programming. It aims at minimizing either the number of selected species or both the number of selected species and the cost of the interaction between them, characterized by the number of metabolic exchanges. In the first case, the level of modeling is called lumped or mixed-bag, in the latter, it is compartmentalized.

Functional Description: Metabolic networks are composed of biochemical reactions and gather the expected metabolic capabilities of species. For organisms that live in interaction altogether (microbiotas), complementarity between these networks can be exploited to predict cooperation events. This software takes as inputs metabolic networks for various species (host, symbionts of the microbiota), components of the growth medium and a metabolic objective (metabolites to be produced), and aims at selecting a minimal set of symbionts to ensure the metabolic objective can be achieved. The software can use two types of modelings: a simplified one and another that takes into account the cost of metabolic exchanges and aims at minimizing it.

News Of The Year: Release of the first version of the software

• Participants: Clémence Frioux, Anne Siegel, Enora Fremy and Camille Trottier

• Contact: Anne Siegel

• Publication: Scalable and exhaustive screening of metabolic functions carried out by microbial consortia

• URL: https://github.com/cfrioux/miscoto