title: Prospects for clinical cancer metabolomics using stable isotope tracers.
abstract: Metabolomics provides a readout of the state of metabolism in cells or tissue and their responses to external perturbations. For this reason, the approach has great potential in clinical diagnostics. For more than two decades, we have been using stable isotope tracer approaches to probe cellular metabolism in greater detail. The ability to enrich common compounds with rare isotopes such as carbon ((13)C) and nitrogen ((15)N) is the only practical means by which metabolic pathways can be traced, which entails following the fate of individual atoms from the source molecule to products via metabolic transformation. Changes in regulation of pathways are therefore captured by this approach, which leads to deeper understanding of the fundamental biochemistry of cells. Using lessons learned from pathways tracing in cells and organs, we have been applying this methodology to human cancer patients in a clinical setting. Here we review the methodologies and approaches to stable isotope tracing in cells, animal models and in humans subjects.
authors.affiliation: JG Brown Cancer Center, Louisville KY 40202, USA. anlane01@louisville.edu
authors.forename: Andrew N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Lane
authors.forename: Teresa W-M
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Higashi
authors.forename: Jinlian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bousamra
authors.forename: Donald M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002247:Carbon Isotopes / Q000378:metabolism; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D006801:Humans; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000378:metabolism*; D009587:Nitrogen Isotopes / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D002247:Carbon Isotopes; D009587:Nitrogen Isotopes