Stable isotope-assisted metabolomics to detect metabolic flux changes in mammalian cell cultures

The determination of metabolic fluxes provides detailed information of cellular physiology, and the assessment of metabolic flux changes upon a certain perturbation can help to improve biotechnological and pharmaceutical processes. Stable isotope-assisted metabolomics using tracer-labeled substrates is the method of choice to determine the fluxes. Though well-established for microbial cultures, the application to mammalian cells is generally complex and still limited. However, there have been great achievements in recent years and it is now emerging that stable isotope-assisted metabolic flux analysis in mammalian cell cultures will help improving biotechnological production and will also support drug development and discovery.

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► Stable isotope-assisted metabolomics is powerful to determine metabolic fluxes.
► Stable isotope-assisted metabolomics is more complex for mammalian cell cultures.
► Biotechnological processes can be improved by assessing metabolic flux changes.
► Metabolic flux analysis is an attractive tool for toxicity studies.
► There is a huge potential for future applications on mammalian systems.