Isotopic profiling of 13C-labeled biological samples by two-dimensional heteronuclear J-resolved nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

The use of two-dimensional heteronuclear J-resolved (2D H-JRES) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy for fast and reliable measurement of isotopic patterns from 13C-enriched compounds resulting from carbon labeling experiments was evaluated. Its use with biological samples of increasing complexity showed that 2D H-JRES spectroscopy is suitable for high-throughput isotopic profiling of any kind of labeled samples. Moreover, the method enabled accurate quantification of 13C enrichments and, thus, can be used for metabolic flux analysis. The excellent trade-off between reduced experimental time and the number of measurable isotopic data makes 2D H-JRES NMR a promising approach for high-throughput flux analysis of samples of intermediate complexity.