Abstract
Intracellular metabolic rates cannot be directly assessed from metabolome concentrations andvice versa. For most biological questions, stable isotope tracers must be administered and trackedto effectively determine metabolic fluxes by means of numerous computational steps. Although fluxanalysis targets the same analytes as metabolomics, priority is given to measuring their exact isotopicdistribution rather than their concentration. In the first part of this chapter, I describe principlesand issues of current 13C flux analysis methods, following the entire processfrom experimental design, to detection of isotopic distributions, and data interpretation. Notably,current practice largely relies on the labeling patterns of protein-bound amino acids, because oftheir abundance and stability. In the second part, I focus on achievements, challenges, and opportunitiesof metabolome-based 13C flux analyses, which are emerging in response tothe need to tackle larger networks, higher cells, and to improve both spatial and temporal resolution.
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Zamboni, N. (2007). Toward metabolome-based 13C flux analysis: a universal tool for measuring in vivo metabolic activity. In: Nielsen, J., Jewett, M.C. (eds) Metabolomics. Topics in Current Genetics, vol 18. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/4735_2007_0220
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