Engineering

Macroeconomics

Biotechnology

Economics

Enzyme

Biochemical engineering

Metabolic pathway

Productivity

Population

Mathematics

Market economy

Biochemistry

Division (mathematics)

Metabolic engineering

Medicine

Biology

Arithmetic

Division of labour

Environmental health

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Significance If contained in a single population a complex metabolic pathway can impose a burden on the host, decreasing the system’s overall productivity. This limitation can be overcome by division of labor (DOL), where distinct populations perform different steps of the pathway, thus reducing the burden on each population. By compartmentalizing reactions, however, DOL reduces their efficiency by introducing a transport barrier for metabolites and enzymes. It remains unclear how the trade-off between reducing burden and decreasing reaction efficiency dictates the potential benefit of DOL. Through the analysis of different metabolic pathways we derive a general criterion establishing when DOL outperforms a single population. Our results can guide rational engineering of metabolic pathways and provide insights into operation of natural pathways.

Metabolic division of labor in microbial systems