Noninvasive approaches to tracing pathways in carbohydrate metabolism

Using measures of metabolic flux to align screening and clinical development: Avoiding pitfalls to enable translational studies

Screening campaigns, especially those aimed at modulating enzyme activity, often rely on measuring substrate→product conversions. Unfortunately, the presence of endogenous substrates and/or products can limit one's ability to measure conversions. As well, coupled detection systems, often used to facilitate optical readouts, are subject to interference. Stable isotope labeled substrates can overcome background contamination and yield a direct readout of enzyme activity. Not only can isotope kinetic assays enable early screening, but they can also be used to follow hit progression in translational (pre)clinical studies. Herein, we consider a case study surrounding lipid biology to exemplify how metabolic flux analyses can connect stages of drug development, caveats are highlighted to ensure reliable data interpretations. For example, when measuring enzyme activity in early biochemical screening it may be enough to quantify the formation of a labeled product. In contrast, cell-based and in vivo studies must account for variable exposure to a labeled substrate (or precursor) which occurs via tracer dilution and/or isotopic exchange. Strategies are discussed to correct for these complications. We believe that measures of metabolic flux can help connect structure-activity relationships with pharmacodynamic mechanisms of action and determine whether mechanistically differentiated biophysical interactions lead to physiologically relevant outcomes. Adoption of this logic may allow research programs to (i) build a critical bridge between primary screening and (pre)clinical development, (ii) elucidate biology in parallel with screening and (iii) suggest a strategy aimed at in vivo biomarker development.

Identification of characteristic heroin metabolites in urine based on data-mining technology and multivariate statistics analysis combined with a targeted verification approach for distinguishing heroin abusers

A common phenomenon shows that ingestion of opium poppy shell-containing drugs can result in a "false-positive" urinalysis test result for mandatory or workplace heroin abuse screening. Owing to the short detection window (8 h in urine) of the characteristic heroin metabolite 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) confirmation or exclusion of heroin abusers still presents major challenges for toxicologists. In this work, we developed an ultra-performance liquid chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry method (UPLC-TOF-MS) with online data acquisition and multiple post-data-mining technologies combined with a multivariate statistical and batch validation analysis workflow to assess the characteristic urine metabolites of heroin abusers. Based on the proposed methods, 28 characteristic metabolites were structurally identified, and their fragmentation patterns and metabolite pathways were also summarized. Correlation analysis was used to investigate the internal relationship and similarities among the identified metabolites, and seven representative metabolites were selected as "Target-metabolites". Multi-batch urine of samples of heroin abusers were certified based on the UPLC-MS/MS method for further validation of the practicability of using this method for routine analysis. Overall, the target-metabolites can be utilized as assistant "biomarkers" in workplace or mandatory drug screenings. This approach encourages further studies on the development of the "false-positive" identification system.

Sources of hepatic glycogen synthesis during an oral glucose tolerance test: Effect of transaldolase exchange on flux estimates

Sources of hepatic glycogen synthesis during an oral glucose tolerance test were evaluated in six healthy subjects by enrichment of a 75-g glucose load with 6.67% [U-(13)C]glucose and 3.33% [U-(2)H(7)]glucose and analysis of plasma glucose and hepatic uridine diphosphate-glucose enrichments (sampled as urinary menthol glucuronide) by (2)H and (13)C nuclear magnetic resonance. The direct pathway contribution, as estimated from the dilution of [U-(13)C]glucose between plasma glucose and glucuronide, was unexpectedly low (36 +/- 5%). With [U-(2)H(7)]glucose, direct pathway estimates based on the dilution of position 3 (2)H-enrichment between plasma glucose and glucuronide were significantly higher (51 +/- 6%, P = 0.05). These differences reflect the exchange of the carbon 4, 5, and 6 moiety of fructose-6-phosphate and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate catalyzed by transaldolase. As further evidence of this exchange, (2)H-enrichments in glucuronide positions 4 and 5 were inferior to those of position 3. From the difference in glucuronide positions 5 and 3 enrichments, the fraction of direct pathway carbons that experienced transaldolase exchange was estimated at 21 +/- 4%. In conclusion, the direct pathway contributes only half of hepatic glycogen synthesis during an oral glucose tolerance test. Glucose tracers labeled in positions 4, 5, or 6 will give significant underestimates of direct pathway activity because of transaldolase exchange.