Methods for measurement of fatty acid and cholesterol metabolism

The measurement of dynamic fluxes of lipids (biosynthesis, oxidation, and intermediary metabolism) poses difficult challenges. Two fundamental advances have been made recently for measuring the biosynthesis of lipids, namely mass isotopomer distribution analysis and labeled water incorporation. These techniques have resolved the central methodologic problem in biosynthesis by establishing the true precursor isotope enrichment. Mass isotopomer distribution analysis also permits uncontaminated pulse-chase decay curves and intracellular precursor fluxes to be measured. In contrast, the isotopic measurement of lipid oxidation rates remains unreliable because of the wide variability in the recovery of labeled carbon dioxide.