Southwestern NMR Center for In Vivo Metabolism
From BTRR
Overview
The facility's core research efforts focus on three projects. The first is to develop and refine the use of 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) isotopomer analysis for the investigation of intermediary metabolism in intact, functioning tissues and to apply these methods to current questions in metabolism. Techniques to assess human hepatic metabolism by 13C NMR of body fluids after ingestion of stable carbon isotopes and metabolite-conjugation agents have been developed.
The second project aims to develop and refine mathematical models to estimate the flux through different metabolic pathways using isotopomer analysis of 13C NMR and/or mass spectroscopy (MS) data. Three programs are under development: tcaSIM, a simulation of the tricarboxylic acid cycle that generates 13C isotopomer data for use in the design of experiments; tcaCALC, a model that estimates relative pathway fluxes from NMR spectra or MS data obtained at metabolic and isotopic steady state; and tcaFLUX, a kinetic analysis that allows measurement of absolute flux from systems at metabolic, but not isotopic, steady state. tcaSIM and tcaCALC are available free of charge to researchers.
The third project aims to develop new techniques and agents for monitoring intercellular cations, particularly sodium, magnesium, and calcium, in perfused tissues and in vivo. Synthetic chemistry and characterization of new agents is ongoing at the University of Texas at Dallas. Evaluation and application of the new agents for perfused organ and in vivo studies are carried out at The Advanced Imaging Research Center at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
