F-SCOPE: Targeted Isotopomer Panel
Heavy atom tracing using glucose (C13) or glutamine (C13 or N15) are used to study glucose oxidation and glycolytic pathways in cells. The FSCOPE platform is a quantitative platform that measures isotopes for 54 metabolites in the glycolytic pathway, TCA cycle, glutathiones and purine metabolism along with amino acids. Glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, Aspartate-Malate shuttle, Glutamate/glutamine catabolism and more can be studied using heavy atom labeled substrates. BCAT studies using labeled BCAA amino acids, or their keto acids can be studied as well. These studies are very informative about carbon and nitrogen flow in energy metabolism and oxidative stress. Levels of lactic acid and pyruvate are indicative of glycolytic rate. In addition, metabolites can be added to the list of 54 to expand the coverage. Pathway and biological analysis is provided for FSCOPE service. FSCOPE provides a quantitative analysis of the isotopomers for all 54 metabolites, however, FSCOPE is not a true Flux analysis. The metabolic fluxome provides a powerful, integrated description of cellular phenotype. However, intracellular fluxes cannot be directly measured. Instead, flux quantification requires sophisticated mathematical and computational analysis of data from isotope labeling experiments. Fluxome analysis integrates metabolic network models and experimental data to generate quantitative metabolic flux maps using individual quantitative measurements of isotopomers as provided by F-SCOPE.