Replaying the tape of evolution: Evolving parameters for a simple bacterial metabolism

Parameter values of biological systems have received comparatively little attention in the past. Particularly computational modellers tend to see them as necessary, but often illusive pieces of information that somehow needs to be inferred. This article is a first attempt to understand whether quantitative information about biological systems, i.e. kinetic parameters, reaction rates, or other constants contain valuable information about the adaptive pressures for which they have evolved. To do this, genetic algorithms are used to evolve parameters for a fixed network structure. The results indicate that the parameters are rather specific to the particular circumstances for which they have evolved. If this is also true for real biological systems, then this suggests that parameter values may be a valuable source of biological information.