Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 15, 2026

Workflow Based on the Combination of Isotopic Tracer Experiments to Investigate Microbial Metabolism of Multiple Nutrient Sources
Published on: January 22, 2018
IsotopicLabelling: an R package for the analysis of MS isotopic patterns of labelled analytes
Ruggero Ferrazza1,2,3, Julian L Griffin3,4, Graziano Guella1,5
1Bioorganic Chemistry Laboratory, Department of Physics.
Motivation:
Labelling experiments in biology usually make use of isotopically enriched substrates, with the two most commonly employed isotopes for metabolism being 2H and 13C. At the end of the experiment some metabolites will have incorporated the labelling isotope, to a degree that depends on the metabolic turnover. In order to propose a meaningful biological interpretation, it is necessary to estimate the amount of labelling, and one possible route is to exploit the fact that MS isotopic patterns reflect the isotopic distributions.
Results:
We developed the IsotopicLabelling R package, a tool able to extract and analyze isotopic patterns from liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and gas chromatography-MS (GC-MS) data relative to labelling experiments. This package estimates the isotopic abundance of the employed stable isotope (either 2H or 13C) within a specified list of analytes.
Availability And Implementation:
The IsotopicLabelling R package is freely available at https://github.com/RuggeroFerrazza/IsotopicLabelling CONTACTS: r.ferrazza@unitn.itSupplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

