Simultaneous Quantification of the Concentration and Carbon Isotopologue Distribution of Polar Metabolites in a Single Analysis by Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry

C-13-isotope tracing is a frequently employed approach to study metabolic pathway activity. When combined with the subsequent quantification of absolute metabolite concentrations, this enables detailed characterization of the metabolome in biological specimens and facilitates computational time-resolved flux quantification. Classically, a C-13-isotopically labeled sample is required to quantify C-13-isotope enrichments and a second unlabeled sample for the quantification of metabolite concentrations. The rationale for a second unlabeled sample is that the current methods for metabolite quantification rely mostly on isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) and thus isotopically labeled internal standards are added to the unlabeled sample. This excludes the absolute quantification of metabolite concentrations in C-13-isotopically labeled samples. To address this issue, we have developed and validated a new strategy using an unlabeled internal standard to simultaneously quantify metabolite concentrations and C-13-isotope enrichments in a single C-13-labeled sample based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The method was optimized for amino acids and citric acid cycle intermediates and was shown to have high analytical precision and accuracy. Metabolite concentrations could be quantified in small tissue samples (>= 20 mg). Also, we applied the method on C-13-isotopically labeled mammalian cells treated with and without a metabolic inhibitor. We proved that we can quantify absolute metabolite concentrations and C-13-isotope enrichments in a single C-13-isotopically labeled sample.

Automated summary

C-13 isotope tracing combined with absolute metabolite concentration quantification enables detailed characterization of the metabolome. Our newly developed method allows simultaneous quantification of metabolite concentrations and C-13 isotope enrichments in a single C-13-labeled sample.