Dynamic flux balance analysis (dFBA) has been widely employed in metabolic engineering to predict the effect of genetic modifications and environmental conditions in the cell's metabolism during dynamic cultures. However, the importance of the model parameters used in these methodologies has not been properly addressed. Here, we present a novel and simple procedure to identify dFBA parameters that are relevant for model calibration. The procedure uses metaheuristic optimization and pre/post-regression diagnostics, fixing iteratively the model parameters that do not have a significant role. We evaluated this protocol in a Saccharomyces cerevisiae dFBA framework calibrated for aerobic fed-batch and anaerobic batch cultivations. The model structures achieved have only significant, sensitive and uncorrelated parameters and are able to calibrate different experimental data We show that consumption, suboptimal growth and production rates are more useful for calibrating dynamic S. cerevisiae metabolic models than Boolean gene expression rules, biomass requirements and ATP maintenance. (C) 2014 International Metabolic Engineering Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.