A novel approach to the analysis of mass spectrally assayed stable isotope-labeling experiments

A novel approach to the analysis of mass spectrally assayed stable isotope-labeling experiments for studies of biosynthetic pathways is reported. This method determines in a mixture of product molecules, the relative number of product molecules synthesized from the stable labeled precursor pathway and those that were either present prior to the labeling period or were produced by an alternate pathway during the course of an experiment. In addition, the isotopic enrichment of the labeled atoms in the product molecules produced from the stable labeled precursor is determined. These isotopic enrichments represent the isotopic enrichment in the immediate precursors which form the product molecules and would reflect any cellular compartmentation of precursor pools. The feasibility of the method using 15NH4Cl and L-[5-15N]glutamine as precursors to study the de novo pyrimidine biosynthetic pathway in isolated rat hepatocytes is demonstrated. The results of these studies show that after incubation of rat hepatocytes with either precursor it is possible to determine the fraction of the uracil nucleotide pool that is formed by the de novo pathway during the period of exposure. The pattern of 15N labeling in the N1 and N3 positions in the uracil moiety is different for the two precursors; however, in most cases the 15N enrichment of each position remained relatively constant for each precursor with either time (15-120 min) or precursor concentration (1 to 10 mM). This method will allow the actual quantitation and isotopic enrichment of product formed by a specific biosynthetic pathway during the course of an experiment and, as such is an improvement over existing labeling techniques.