In this work, a mechanistic model for predicting the dynamic behavior of extracellular and intracellular nutrients, biomass production, and the main metabolites involved in the central carbon metabolism in plant cell cultures of Thevetia peruviana is presented. The proposed model is the first mechanistic model implemented for plant cell cultures of this species, and includes 28 metabolites, 33 metabolic reactions, and 61 parameters. Given the over-parametrization of the model, its nonlinear nature and the strong correlation among the effects of the parameters, a parameter estimation routine based on identifiability analysis was implemented. This routine reduces the parameter's search space by selecting the most sensitive and linearly independent parameters. Results have shown that only 19 parameters are identifiable. Finally, the model was used for analyzing the fluxes distribution in plant cell cultures of T. peruviana. This analysis shows high uptake of phosphates and parallel uptake of glucose and fructose. Furthermore, it has pointed out the main central carbon metabolism routes for promoting biomass production in this cell culture.
Keywords: Identifiability analysis; Modelling; Parameter estimation; Plant cell cultures; Thevetia peruviana.