title: Stable isotope-labeled tracers for metabolic pathway elucidation by GC-MS and FT-MS.
abstract: Advances in analytical methodologies, principally nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS), over the last decade have made large-scale analysis of the human metabolome a reality. This is leading to the reawakening of the importance of metabolism in human diseases, particularly widespread metabolic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Emerging NMR and MS atom-tracking technologies and informatics are poised to revolutionize metabolomics-based research because they deliver the high information throughput (HIT) that is needed for deciphering systems biochemistry. In particular, stable isotope-resolved metabolomics (SIRM) enables unambiguous tracking of individual atoms through compartmentalized metabolic networks in a wide range of experimental systems, including human subjects. MS offers a wide range of instrumental capabilities involving different levels of initial capital outlay and operating costs, ranging from gas-chromatography (GC) MS that is affordable by many individual laboratories to the HIT-supporting Fourier-transform (FT) class of MS that rivals NMR in cost and infrastructure support. This chapter focuses on sample preparation, instrument, and data processing procedures for these two extremes of MS instrumentation used in SIRM.
authors.affiliation: Graduate Center of Toxicology, University of Kentucky, Biopharm Complex, 789 S. Limestone St., Lexington, KY, 40536, USA, rick.higashi@uky.edu.
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Higashi
authors.forename: Teresa W-M
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Pawel K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Lorkiewicz
authors.forename: Hunter N B
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Moseley
authors.forename: Andrew N
authors.initials: AN
authors.lastname: Lane
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007553:Isotope Labeling / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D055442:Metabolome; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*