scholarly journals Omics-based label-free metabolic flux inference reveals dysregulation of glucose metabolism in liver associated with obesity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saori Uematsu ◽  
Satoshi Ohno ◽  
Kaori Y. Tanaka ◽  
Atsushi Hatano ◽  
Toshiya Kokaji ◽  
...  

Glucose homeostasis is maintained by modulating metabolic flux through various metabolic pathways in metabolic organs such as liver, and a change in metabolic flux is regulated by enzymes and metabolites. Obesity represents dysregulation of the glucose homeostasis, but changes in metabolic fluxes and their regulations associated with obesity have not been fully understood. Here we introduce Omics-based Metabolic flux Estimation without Labeling for Extended Trans-omic analysis (OMELET), an approach that uses metabolomic, proteomic and transcriptomic data to identify changes in metabolic flux, and to quantify contributions of metabolites, enzymes and transcripts to the changes in metabolic flux. We identified obesity-associated increases in metabolic fluxes through gluconeogenesis and pyruvate cycle in fasting ob/ob mice. The increased metabolic flux through gluconeogenesis was contributed by increased transcripts, while that through pyruvate cycle by increased transcripts and substrates. OMELET provided quantitative insights into alteration and dysregulation of metabolic flux in liver associated with obesity.

2018 ◽  
Vol 239 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lewin Small ◽  
Henry Gong ◽  
Christian Yassmin ◽  
Gregory J Cooney ◽  
Amanda E Brandon

One major factor affecting physiology often overlooked when comparing data from animal models and humans is the effect of ambient temperature. The majority of rodent housing is maintained at ~22°C, the thermoneutral temperature for lightly clothed humans. However, mice have a much higher thermoneutral temperature of ~30°C, consequently data collected at 22°C in mice could be influenced by animals being exposed to a chronic cold stress. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of housing temperature on glucose homeostasis and energy metabolism of mice fed normal chow or a high-fat, obesogenic diet (HFD). Male C57BL/6J(Arc) mice were housed at standard temperature (22°C) or at thermoneutrality (29°C) and fed either chow or a 60% HFD for 13 weeks. The HFD increased fat mass and produced glucose intolerance as expected but this was not exacerbated in mice housed at thermoneutrality. Changing the ambient temperature, however, did alter energy expenditure, food intake, lipid content and glucose metabolism in skeletal muscle, liver and brown adipose tissue. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that mice regulate energy balance at different housing temperatures to maintain whole-body glucose tolerance and adiposity irrespective of the diet. Despite this, metabolic differences in individual tissues were apparent. In conclusion, dietary intervention in mice has a greater impact on adiposity and glucose metabolism than housing temperature although temperature is still a significant factor in regulating metabolic parameters in individual tissues.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ratnasekhar Ch ◽  
Guillaume Rey ◽  
Sandipan Ray ◽  
Pawan K. Jha ◽  
Paul C. Driscoll ◽  
...  

AbstractCircadian clocks coordinate mammalian behavior and physiology enabling organisms to anticipate 24-hour cycles. Transcription-translation feedback loops are thought to drive these clocks in most of mammalian cells. However, red blood cells (RBCs), which do not contain a nucleus, and cannot perform transcription or translation, nonetheless exhibit circadian redox rhythms. Here we show human RBCs display circadian regulation of glucose metabolism, which is required to sustain daily redox oscillations. We found daily rhythms of metabolite levels and flux through glycolysis and the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP). We show that inhibition of critical enzymes in either pathway abolished 24-hour rhythms in metabolic flux and redox oscillations, and determined that metabolic oscillations are necessary for redox rhythmicity. Furthermore, metabolic flux rhythms also occur in nucleated cells, and persist when the core transcriptional circadian clockwork is absent in Bmal1 knockouts. Thus, we propose that rhythmic glucose metabolism is an integral process in circadian rhythms.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xingbo Yang ◽  
Daniel J. Needleman

AbstractMitochondria are central to metabolism and their dysfunctions are associated with many diseases1–9. Metabolic flux, the rate of turnover of molecules through a metabolic pathway, is one of the most important quantities in metabolism, but it remains a challenge to measure spatiotemporal variations in mitochondrial metabolic fluxes in living cells. Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) of NADH is a label-free technique that is widely used to characterize the metabolic state of mitochondria in vivo10–18. However, the utility of this technique has been limited by the inability to relate FLIM measurement to the underlying metabolic activities in mitochondria. Here we show that, if properly interpreted, FLIM of NADH can be used to quantitatively measure the flux through a major mitochondrial metabolic pathway, the electron transport chain (ETC), in vivo with subcellular resolution. This result is based on the use of a coarse-grained NADH redox model, which we test in mouse oocytes subject to a wide variety of perturbations by comparing predicted fluxes to direct biochemical measurements and by self-consistency criterion. Using this method, we discovered a subcellular spatial gradient of mitochondrial metabolic flux in mouse oocytes. We showed that this subcellular variation in mitochondrial flux correlates with a corresponding subcellular variation in mitochondrial membrane potential. The developed model, and the resulting procedure for analyzing FLIM of NADH, are valid under nearly all circumstances of biological interest. Thus, this approach is a general procedure to measure metabolic fluxes dynamically in living cells, with subcellular resolution.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio Tomi-Andrino ◽  
Rupert Norman ◽  
Thomas Millat ◽  
Philippe Soucaille ◽  
Klaus Winzer ◽  
...  

AbstractMetabolic engineering in the post-genomic era is characterised by the development of new methods for metabolomics and fluxomics, supported by the integration of genetic engineering tools and mathematical modelling. Particularly, constraint-based stoichiometric models have been widely studied: (i) flux balance analysis (FBA) (in silico), and (ii) metabolic flux analysis (MFA) (in vivo). Recent studies have enabled the incorporation of thermodynamics and metabolomics data to improve the predictive capabilities of these approaches. However, an in-depth comparison and evaluation of these methods is lacking. This study presents a thorough analysis of two different in silico methods tested against experimental data (metabolomics and 13C-MFA) for the mesophile Escherichia coli. In particular, a modified version of the recently published matTFA toolbox was created, providing a broader range of physicochemical parameters. Validating against experimental data allowed the determination of the best physicochemical parameters to perform the TFA (Thermodynamics-based Flux Analysis). An analysis of flux pattern changes in the central carbon metabolism between 13C-MFA and TFA highlighted the limited capabilities of both approaches for elucidating the anaplerotic fluxes. In addition, a method based on centrality measures was suggested to identify important metabolites that (if quantified) would allow to further constrain the TFA. Finally, this study emphasised the need for standardisation in the fluxomics community: novel approaches are frequently released but a thorough comparison with currently accepted methods is not always performed.Author summaryBiotechnology has benefitted from the development of high throughput methods characterising living systems at different levels (e.g. concerning genes or proteins), allowing the industrial production of chemical commodities. Recently, focus has been placed on determining reaction rates (or metabolic fluxes) in the metabolic network of certain microorganisms, in order to identify bottlenecks hindering their exploitation. Two main approaches are commonly used, termed metabolic flux analysis (MFA) and flux balance analysis (FBA), based on measuring and estimating fluxes, respectively. While the influence of thermodynamics in living systems was accepted several decades ago, its application to study biochemical networks has only recently been enabled. In this sense, a multitude of different approaches constraining well-established modelling methods with thermodynamics has been suggested. However, physicochemical parameters are generally not properly adjusted to the experimental conditions, which might affect their predictive capabilities. In this study, we have explored the reliability of currently available tools by investigating the impact of varying said parameters in the simulation of metabolic fluxes and metabolite concentration values. Additionally, our in-depth analysis allowed us to highlight limitations and potential solutions that should be considered in future studies.


eLife ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anika Küken ◽  
Frederik Sommer ◽  
Liliya Yaneva-Roder ◽  
Luke CM Mackinder ◽  
Melanie Höhne ◽  
...  

Cells and organelles are not homogeneous but include microcompartments that alter the spatiotemporal characteristics of cellular processes. The effects of microcompartmentation on metabolic pathways are however difficult to study experimentally. The pyrenoid is a microcompartment that is essential for a carbon concentrating mechanism (CCM) that improves the photosynthetic performance of eukaryotic algae. Using Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, we obtained experimental data on photosynthesis, metabolites, and proteins in CCM-induced and CCM-suppressed cells. We then employed a computational strategy to estimate how fluxes through the Calvin-Benson cycle are compartmented between the pyrenoid and the stroma. Our model predicts that ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP), the substrate of Rubisco, and 3-phosphoglycerate (3PGA), its product, diffuse in and out of the pyrenoid, respectively, with higher fluxes in CCM-induced cells. It also indicates that there is no major diffusional barrier to metabolic flux between the pyrenoid and stroma. Our computational approach represents a stepping stone to understanding microcompartmentalized CCM in other organisms.


2004 ◽  
Vol 70 (12) ◽  
pp. 7277-7287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Wittmann ◽  
Patrick Kiefer ◽  
Oskar Zelder

ABSTRACT Metabolic fluxes in the central metabolism were determined for lysine-producing Corynebacterium glutamicum ATCC 21526 with sucrose as a carbon source, providing an insight into molasses-based industrial production processes with this organism. For this purpose, 13C metabolic flux analysis with parallel studies on [1-13CFru]sucrose, [1-13CGlc]sucrose, and [13C6 Fru]sucrose was carried out. C. glutamicum directed 27.4% of sucrose toward extracellular lysine. The strain exhibited a relatively high flux of 55.7% (normalized to an uptake flux of hexose units of 100%) through the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP). The glucose monomer of sucrose was completely channeled into the PPP. After transient efflux, the fructose residue was mainly taken up by the fructose-specific phosphotransferase system (PTS) and entered glycolysis at the level of fructose-1,6-bisphosphate. Glucose-6-phosphate isomerase operated in the gluconeogenetic direction from fructose-6-phosphate to glucose-6-phosphate and supplied additional carbon (7.2%) from the fructose part of the substrate toward the PPP. This involved supply of fructose-6-phosphate from the fructose part of sucrose either by PTSMan or by fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase. C. glutamicum further exhibited a high tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle flux of 78.2%. Isocitrate dehydrogenase therefore significantly contributed to the total NADPH supply of 190%. The demands for lysine (110%) and anabolism (32%) were lower than the supply, resulting in an apparent NADPH excess. The high TCA cycle flux and the significant secretion of dihydroxyacetone and glycerol display interesting targets to be approached by genetic engineers for optimization of the strain investigated.


2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Pallayova ◽  
Kimberley E. Steele ◽  
Thomas H. Magnuson ◽  
Michael A. Schweitzer ◽  
Nathan R. Hill ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Chetan T. Goudar ◽  
Richard Biener ◽  
James M. Piret ◽  
Konstantin B. Konstantinov

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S9-S10
Author(s):  
Brooklyn McGrew ◽  
Aman Shrivastava ◽  
Philip Fernandes ◽  
Lubaina Ehsan ◽  
Yash Sharma ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Candidate markers for Crohn’s Disease (CD) may be identified via gene expression-based construction of metabolic networks (MN). These can computationally describe gene-protein-reaction associations for entire tissues and also predict the flux of reactions (rate of turnover of specific molecules via a metabolic pathway). Recon3D is the most comprehensive human MN to date. We used publicly available CD transcriptomic data along with Recon3D to identify metabolites as potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers. Methods Terminal ileal gene expression profiles (36,372 genes; 218 CD. 42 controls) from the RISK cohort (Risk Stratification and Identification of Immunogenetic and Microbial Markers of Rapid Disease Progression in Children with Crohn’s Disease) and their transcriptomic abundances were used. Recon3D was pruned to only include RISK dataset transcripts which determined metabolic reaction linkage with transcriptionally active genes. Flux balance analysis (FBA) was then run using RiPTiDe with context specific transcriptomic data to further constrain genes (Figure 1). RiPTiDe was independently run on transcriptomic data from both CD and controls. From the pruned and constricted MN obtained, reactions were extracted for further analysis. Results After applying the necessary constraints to modify Recon3D, 527 CD and 537 control reactions were obtained. Reaction comparison with a publicly available list of healthy small intestinal epithelial reactions (n=1282) showed an overlap of 80 CD and 84 control reactions. These were then further grouped based on their metabolic pathways. RiPTiDe identified context specific metabolic pathway activity without supervision and the percentage of forward, backward, and balanced reactions for each metabolic pathway (Figure 2). The metabolite concentrations in the small intestine was altered among CD patients. Notably, the citric acid cycle and malate-aspartate shuttle were affected, highlighting changes in mitochondrial metabolic pathways. This is illustrated by changes in the number of reactions at equilibrium between CD and control. Conclusions The results are relevant as cytosolic acetyl-CoA is needed for fatty acid synthesis and is obtained by removing citrate from the citric acid cycle. An intermediate removal from the cycle has significant cataplerotic effects. The malate-aspartate shuttle also allows electrons to move across the impermeable membrane in the mitochondria (fatty acid synthesis location). These findings are reported by previously published studies where gene expression for fatty acid synthesis is altered in CD patients along with mitochondrial metabolic pathway changes, resulting in altered cell homeostasis. In-depth analysis is currently underway with our work supporting the utility of potential metabolic biomarkers for CD diagnosis, management and improved care.


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