The Metabolism and Bioenergetics Core (MBC) serves investigators by providing access to instrumentation and expertise to execute studies focused on metabolism and bioenergetics. The mission of the MBC is to make cutting-edge biomedical research services available to investigators at ACRI, UAMS and further afield. Located at Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI), the MBC has been supported since 2017 through an NIGMS COBRE award (NIH P20 GM109096).
KEY SERVICE LINES
In line with our goal to support research focused on studying substrate metabolism and bioenergetics, the MBC provides service lines including clinical chemistry, stable isotope tracing approaches, and bioenergetics.
Clinical Chemistry: Clinical chemistry services support the quantification of routine metabolites, enzyme and hormone concentrations in biological samples. The MBC leverages several clinical chemistry analyzer platforms to provide a comprehensive catalogue of analytical readouts. These include blood cell counting and white cell differentials, quantification of metabolite and hormone concentrations (e.g., glucose, insulin and glycated hemoglobin), as well as standard clinical chemistry panels (lipid panels, liver function panels and kidney function panels). The MBC has adopted an operating model for clinical chemistry service that is geared toward supporting the specific needs of biomedical researchers (i.e., batch analysis of study samples).
Stable Isotope Tracing Approaches: A unique aspect of the MBC is our ability to support users in the application of stable isotope techniques to compute metabolic fluxes and substrate turnover/oxidation rates in vivo. This includes the direct determination of various metabolic processes in free-living individuals. The MBC focuses on approaches that allow metabolic processes to be determined non-invasively in humans, where only the oral administration of isotopes and the collection of urine and/or saliva/breath samples is needed. The MBC specializes in leveraging minimally invasive stable isotope approaches that directly quantify energy metabolism in free-living humans.
Bioenergetics: Another unique service line provided by the MBC relates to the analysis of cellular bioenergetics. The MBC offers platforms where studies of bioenergetics can be performed in cells, isolated mitochondria or tissue preparations. MBC staff have significant expertise in quantifying mitochondrial respiratory function in circulating blood as well as various human and animal tissue samples.
KEY EQUIPMENT
Blood and Tissue Biochemistry:
- Sysmex XN-330 Hematology Analyzer (Sysmex International).
- Microplate spectrophotometer (BioTeK).
- YSI 2900D Biochemistry Analyzer (YSI).
Mass Spectrometers:
- Shimadzu QP-2010 GCMS (Shimadzu Scientific Instruments).
- Shimadzu QP-2010 Ultra GCMS (Shimadzu Scientific Instruments).
- Delta V Advantage Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer with ConFlo IV (Thermo Scientific,) equipped with one (1) GasBench II, one (1) GC Isolink, One (1) High Temperature Conversion/Elemental Analyzer and One (1) Costech ECS 4010 Elemental Analyzer, with Zero-Blank Autosampler (Costech Analytical Technologies).
- LGI liquid isotope analyzer (ABB)
Bioenergetics:
- Oroboros Instruments Oxygraph high-resolution respirometers (Oroboros Instruments).
- Seahorse Xfe96 (Agilent Technologies).
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