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Updated: May 5, 2026
LC-MS Analysis of Human Platelets as a Platform for Studying Mitochondrial Metabolism
Published on: April 4, 2016
Human platelets as a platform to monitor metabolic biomarkers using stable isotopes and LC-MS
Sankha S Basu1, Eric C Deutsch, Alec A Schmaier
1Department of Pharmacology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Background:
Intracellular metabolites such as CoA thioesters are modulated in a number of clinical settings. Their accurate measurement from surrogate tissues such as platelets may provide additional information to current serum and urinary biomarkers.
Methods:
Freshly isolated platelets from healthy volunteers were treated with rotenone, propionate or isotopically labeled metabolic tracers. Using a recently developed LC-MS-based methodology, absolute changes in short-chain acyl-CoA thioesters were monitored, as well as relative metabolic labeling using isotopomer distribution analysis.
Results:
Consistent with in vitro experiments, isolated platelets treated with rotenone showed decreased intracellular succinyl-CoA and increased β-hydroxybutyryl-CoA, while propionate treatment resulted in increased propionyl-CoA. In addition, isotopomers of the CoAs were readily detected in platelets treated with the [(13)C]- or [(13)C(15)N]-labeled metabolic precursors.
Conclusion:
Here, we show that human platelets can provide a powerful ex vivo challenge platform with potential clinical diagnostic and biomarker discovery applications.
