A minimal input-output configuration for a priori identifiability of a compartmental model of leucine metabolism

• Published in: IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering 1993-08, Vol.40 (8), p.797-803
• Main Authors: Saccomani, M.P., Cobelli, C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amino acids; Bicarbonates - metabolism; Biochemistry; Biological and medical sciences; Computerized, statistical medical data processing and models in biomedicine; Humans; Leucine - metabolism; Mathematics; Medical sciences; Models and simulation; Models, Biological; Pilot Projects; Predictive models
• ISSN: 0018-9294; 1558-2531
• DOI: 10.1109/10.238464

To develop a model describing the structure and function of a metabolic system using data from an input-output experiment, it is useful to design a pilot tracer study first which contains a predicted maximal amount of information. Having postulated a physiologically reasonable model structure from the pilot data, two questions arise, first, whether the model parameters are a priori uniquely identifiable, and if so, whether the pilot experiment is a minimal one. The purpose of the present study is to determine a minimal input-output configuration for the a priori unique identifiability of a compartmental model describing the metabolism of leucine, an essential amino acid. The original pilot tracer experiment was a two-stage experiment consisting first of a two-input-five-output experiment followed by a single-input-single-output experiment. It is shown that to guarantee a priori unique identifiability of the leucine model, the single-input-single-output experiment is not necessary, and that two of the outputs of the multi-input-multi-output experiment are not required.< >