Development of Chemical Isotope Labeling Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry for Metabolomic Analysis of Small Numbers of Mammalian Cells

摘要

Metabolomics is an important tool for studying biological processes in cells. However, in many studies such as working with stem cells or primary cells, the number of cells available for analysis is limited. With a limited number of cells, achieving complete cell lysis and cellular metabolite extraction in a manner compatible to the downstream sample processing and analysis is critical. In this work, we report a workflow tailored to cellular metabolomics research with a limited number of cells. We combine efficient cell lysis and chemical isotopic labeling liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (CIL LC-MS) to achieve high coverage cellular metabolome profiling.