GC-MS Steady state and Metabolic Flux approach to the study of Mitochondrial Metabolism

The following text has been provided by Dr David De Souza - Metabolomics Australia, Bio21 Institute, The University of Melbourne, Australia.

Comprehensive targeted GC-QQQ profiling of SH-SY5Y neuronal cells lacking the mitochondrial transmembrane protein Tim8a (A,B) showed significant metabolic changes in the TCA cycle and Malate-Aspartate shuttle. To better understand the nature of this perturbation, stable isotope labelling experiments (C), using U-13C-glucose and U-13C-glutamine were performed. 

The pattern of label incorporation showed that these neuronal cells primarily use glutamine to feed the TCA cycle, and that the absence of Tim8a led to a decreased production of intermediates for the malate-aspartate shuttle. 

These results indicated a dysregulation of mitochondrial metabolism and redox balance, suggesting a vital role in neuronal cell biology.

GC-MS Steady state and Metabolic Flux approach to the study of Mitochondrial Metabolism (Kang et al. eLife 2019)

This work was based on Shimadzu Labsolutions Insight, DExSI, which is an open source software for GC-MS stable isotope labelling analysis.

David and his colleagues share a reserach interest is in polar metabolite profiling, Metabolic flux and Stable Isotope Labelling. Please follow this link if you would like to get in touch with David.