ABSTRACT
Three primary types of biomolecular pathways together orchestrate the complex processes required to sustain life: metabolic pathways, in which proteins manufacture cellular building blocks and provide for the energy needs of the cell, genetic regulatory pathways, which control the timing and abundance of de novo synthesis for each of the cell’s numerous proteins, from their respective genes, and signaling pathways, which execute a cellular response to environmental cues, often via integration with metabolic and genetic regulatory pathways. The ability to understand the richness of molecular biology — and certainly to attempt to intervene for the sake of desired phenotypic outcomes — depends on successful mapping and analysis of these pathways on a cellular scale. With the advent of increasingly sophisticated measurement and manipulation technologies, and largely as a result of the post genomic age, recent years have seen a massive surge in pathway mapping and subsequent understanding of the intricacies of biological systems.
