[Lipid metabolism and lipogenesis: application of stable isotopes]

Fat metabolism is regulated by several neuroendocrine and nutritional factors, which affect equilibrium between lipogenesis and lipolysis. Lipid utilization and fate in the organism can be assessed by in vivo and in vitro methods by measuring the rate of the different metabolic pathways (dynamic aspects), but also the net balance which may lead to fat accumulation or loss (static aspects). The quantitation of synthesis and breakdown reactions can be performed by using different tracers such as radioactive and stable isotopes. Fatty acid synthesis can be independently measured by the intravenous infusion of 13C acetate and application of the MIDA technique. In brief, this method uses probability analysis to measure the synthesis of biological polymers. It is based on the mathematical principle that the labeling pattern of a polymer synthesized from a stable-isotopically labeled precursor will conform to a predicted binomial or multinomial expansion. Thus, the isotopic enrichment of the precursor pool is calculated from measurements on the product alone. In the case of fatty acid synthesis, the proportions of excess (above natural background abundance) of single-labeled and double labeled (EM1 and EM2 species respectively) are a function of the probability (p) that the precursor subunits were isotopically labeled. Using this value of P for the isotopic enrichment of the acetylCoA pool, the theoretical 13C enrichment in the fatty acid if 100% were newly formed from this acetate pool is calculated. The actual isotopic enrichment is measured by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS). This value divided by the theoretical maximum value equals the fraction of the fatty acid that is newly formed (f). The value for f represents dilution of de novo synthesized fatty acid by non-de novo sources. This method requires that newly synthesized (labeled) and preformed (unlabeled) mix in the liver and communicate with plasma VLDL over the period of the isotope infusion. It also assumes that the major de novo fatty acid is only a single fatty acid, with minor elongation and/or desaturation processes. Finally, the infused isotopic acetate should have no physiologically important effect. This methodology can be applied to assess lipogenesis in very different nutritional and physiopathological conditions such as diabetes, AIDS, obesity, etc.