Metabolomics reveals critical adrenergic regulatory checkpoints in glycolysis and pentose-phosphate pathways in embryonic heart

Cardiac energy demands during early embryonic periods are sufficiently met through glycolysis, but as development proceeds, the oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria becomes increasingly vital. Adrenergic hormones are known to stimulate metabolism in adult mammals and are essential for embryonic development, but relatively little is known about their effects on metabolism in the embryonic heart. Here, we show that embryos lacking adrenergic stimulation have approximate to 10-fold less cardiac ATP compared with littermate controls. Despite this deficit in steady-state ATP, neither the rates of ATP formation nor degradation was affected in adrenergic hormone-deficient hearts, suggesting that ATP synthesis and hydrolysis mechanisms were fully operational. We thus hypothesized that adrenergic hormones stimulate metabolism of glucose to provide chemical substrates for oxidation in mitochondria. To test this hypothesis, we employed a metabolomics-based approach using LC/MS. Our results showed glucose 1-phosphate and glucose 6-phosphate concentrations were not significantly altered, but several downstream metabolites in both glycolytic and pentose-phosphate pathways were significantly lower compared with controls. Furthermore, we identified glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase as key enzymes in those respective metabolic pathways whose activity was significantly (p < 0.05) and substantially (80 and 40%, respectively) lower in adrenergic hormone-deficient hearts. Addition of pyruvate and to a lesser extent ribose led to significant recovery of steady-state ATP concentrations. These results demonstrate that without adrenergic stimulation, glucose metabolism in the embryonic heart is severely impaired in multiple pathways, ultimately leading to insufficient metabolic substrate availability for successful transition to aerobic respiration needed for survival.