Open AccessUse of the 1‐mm micro‐probe for metabolic analysis on small volume biological samples
Author(s) -
Serkova Natalie J.,
Freund Amy S.,
Brown Jaimi L.,
Kominsky Douglas J.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of cellular and molecular medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.44
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1582-4934
pISSN - 1582-1838
DOI - 10.1111/j.1582-4934.2008.00464.x
Subject(s) - prostate cancer , cancer , metabolite , metabolic activity , biopsy , cancer cell , spermine , nuclear medicine , chemistry , pathology , biomedical engineering , medicine , biochemistry , physiology , enzyme
Endogenous metabolites are promising diagnostic end‐points in cancer research. Clinical application of high‐resolution NMR spectroscopy is often limited by extremely low volumes of human specimens. In the present study, the use of the Bruker 1‐mm high‐resolution TXI micro‐probe was evaluated in the elucidation of metabolic profiles for three different clinical applications with limited sample sizes (body fluids, isolated cells and tissue biopsies). Sample preparation and 1 H‐NMR metabolite quantification protocols were optimized for following oncology‐oriented applications: ( i ) to validate the absolute concentrations of citrate and spermine in human expressed prostatic specimens (EPS volumes 5 to 10 μl: prostate cancer application); ( ii ) to establish the metabolic profile of isolated human lymphocytes (total cell count 4 = 10 6 : chronic myelogenous leukaemia application); ( iii ) to assess the metabolic composition of human head‐and‐neck cancers from mouse xenografts (biopsy weights 20 to 70 mg: anti‐cancer treatment application). In this study, the use of the Bruker 1‐mm micro‐probe provides a convenient way to measure and quantify endogenous metabolic profiles of samples with a very low volume/weight/cell count.