How metabolites modulate metabolic flux

Adaptation to metabolic needs and changing environments is a
basic requirement of every living system. These adaptations
can be very quick and mild or slower but more drastic. In any
case, cells have to constantly monitor their metabolic state and
requirements.In this article we review general concepts as well
as recent advances on how metabolites can regulate
metabolic fluxes. We discuss how cells sense metabolite
levels and how changing metabolite levels regulate metabolic
enzymes on different levels, from specific allosteric regulation
to global transcriptional regulation. We thereby focus on local
metabolite sensing in mammalian cells and show that several
major discoveries have only very recently been made.