Trends in Biochemical Sciences
Technology of the monthMetabolic Flux Analysis: Moving beyond Static Metabolomics
Section snippets
ADVANTAGES:
MFA compared to static metabolomics:
Deep insight into the metabolism in a variety of in vitro (e.g., patient-derived cells) and in vivo (e.g., animal models, humans) models.
Can detect even slight changes in biochemical pathway activity.
Does not focus just on substrate–product as the classic enzymatic studies do.
MS-based isotopologue analysis:
High sensitivity (nM concentrations).
Coverage of a wide range of metabolites.
Widely available instrumentation.
Scalable.
Rapid data acquisition.
NMR-based
CHALLENGES:
MFA compared to static metabolomics:
Requires advanced analytical chemistry techniques.
Requires a priori experimental design – incompatible with most biobanks.
Time consuming.
Expensive.
MS-based isotopologue analysis:
Requires predefined models to interpret metabolite mass shifts.
Requires chromatographic separation to resolve chemical species.
Destructive to the sample.
NMR-based isotopomer analysis:
Lower sensitivity.
Limited to a narrow breadth of the metabolome.
Expensive instrumentation.
Higher
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