Introduction



The multi-disciplinary approach of systems biology combines a variety of modern experimental techniques which lead to an increased accuracy of measurements of enzyme structures and activities by the application of advanced analysis methods. Due to these technological inventions in turn huge amounts of data and large data sets are generated and subsequently published in electronic data repositories and in written papers.

However, all these data in both the literature and in databases suffer from the fact that they are incomparable due to incomplete and fragmented descriptions of materials and methods, and therefore are, to some extent, unreliable. Furthermore, if the experimental conditions are not clearly and fully stated, the values of the functional data of enzyme activities are of little use for, in particular, systems biology applications.

Moreover, experimental results have been collected under quite disparate conditions so that researchers often are faced with the problem of the range of method-specific enzyme data. This causes problems when data move between researchers whose data are supplied by laboratories that use different methods, and can, in the worst case, lead to misinterpretations of laboratory findings.

Since 2003 the STRENDA Commission (Standards for Reporting Enzyme Data) is concerned with the improvement of the quality of reporting functional enzyme data to support the community with the efficient application of enzyme kinetics in the in vivo, in vitro and in silico investigation of biological systems. The Commission has two major goals: One is the development of a set of guidelines for the reporting of data in publications. These guidelines have already been adopted by a number of biochemistry journals, and some major publishers recommend their authors to refer to the checklists registered at the MIBBI portal, respectively. The second goal is the development of an electronic data submission tool which incorporates the STRENDA Guidelines, and which is intended to act as a portal for the submission of enzyme kinetics data to a freely accessible, public database.

This 5th ESCEC symposium, organized by the Beilstein-Institut together with the STRENDA Commission, provides a platform to discuss standards in biochemistry in general and the STRENDA Guidelines in particular. The meeting also brings together representatives from diverse standardizations initiatives and systems biology groups such as MIBBI, YSBN, EFB and SYSMO, and the editorial board members from journals. Additionally experts from all fields of experimental, theoretic and bioinformatics enzymology and metabolic network investigation are invited to present and discuss new results, approaches and methodologies including the following aspects:

  • Systems Biology
  • Sequence, Structure and Kinetics
  • Physiological Meaning of Enzyme Kinetics
  • Network Modelling
  • Enzymes in Metabolic Collaboration
  • Pitfalls in Data Reproduction
  • Standard Data Repositories
  • and further more upon suggestion(s)