The distributions of ATP and reducing equivalents were estimated with the aid of a pre-constructed bionetwork describing the growth characteristics of Corynebacterium glutamicum cultivated in a pH-auxostat. Results showed that the specific growth rate (mu) imposed different degrees of influences on both ATP and reducing equivalents. The ATP generated from the TCA cycle increased about 33% as mu was raised from 0.23 to 0.45 h(-1), while the ATP obtained from the EMP pathway decreased from 32.90 to 2.12%, over the same growth span. In contrast, the reducing equivalents contributed from both the TCA cycle and the EMP pathway varied slightly. The ATP obtained through glucose utilization was insufficient to balance the microbial demands. As a result, the transformation among amino acids to compensate the ATP requirement was noticed. To enhance product resolution from an amino acid mix, metabolic nodes at AKG, PYR, PEP, and RU5P have been identified and could be considered concurrently as the potential nodes for manipulating metabolic flows in C glutamicum. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.