¹³C-based metabolic flux analysis in yeast: the Pichia pastoris case

Metabolic flux analysis based on tracing patterns of stable isotopes, particularly (13)C, comprises a set of methodologies to experimentally quantify intracellular biochemical reaction rates, i.e., to measure carbon flux distributions through a metabolic network. This allows quantifying the response of a metabolic network to an environmental or genetic perturbation (i.e., the metabolic phenotype). Here, we describe a protocol based on growing yeast on a (13)C-labelled substrate and subsequent NMR detection of (13)C-patterns in proteinogenic amino acids. To calculate metabolic fluxes, we describe two complementary mathematical approaches using available software; namely, an approach based on the estimation of local ratios in network nodes, and a method based on a global iterative fitting approach. Furthermore, we consider specificities of these protocols for their application to the yeast Pichia pastoris growing on multicarbon substrates other than glucose (glycerol), as well as the case when methanol is used as co-substrate in combination with glucose or glycerol.