Metabolic rewiring/reprogramming is an essential hallmark of cancer. Alteration of metabolic phenotypes is occurred in cancer cells in response to a harsh condition to support cancer cell proliferation, survival, and metastasis. Stable isotope can be used as a tracer to investigate the redistribution of the carbons labeled in glucose in order to elucidate the detailed mechanisms of cellular rewiring and reprogramming in tumor microenvironment. Stable isotope-resolved metabolomics (SIRM) is an analytical method inferring metabolic networking by using advanced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS) to analyze the fate of a single atom from a stable isotope-enriched precursor to a product metabolite. This methodology has been demonstrated for a wide range of biological applications, including cancer metabolomic analysis. The basic principle and platforms of SIRM and its implication for cancer metabolism research will be addressed in this chapter.
Keywords: Cancer metabolomics; MS; NMR; SIRM; Stable isotope-based tracer.