Metabolic Control Analysis 2D: Rate-Limiting Enzyme Explorer

A linear five-enzyme metabolic pathway, solved to its exact steady state with a closed-form fixed-point calculation, then probed the way a metabolic engineer would: nudge one enzyme's Vmax and measure how much the pathway's overall flux actually moves. This simulator computes all five flux control coefficients exactly, live, obeying the summation theorem that says control across the pathway always adds up to one. Drag the Vmax sliders to starve or boost individual enzymes and watch control snap fully onto whichever enzyme is the true bottleneck — the metabolite pool swells upstream of it, its gate glows, and the sensitivity chart below shows exactly where the kink in the flux curve sits.