NIH Research Progress (Progress Report)

Abstract

During the past year, the Resource continued to address three major gaps in the continued growth and application of AMS in biomedical research. The first identified gap is the lack of high throughput analysis coupled to molecular speciation, which can be solved by the development of an on-line fully integrated AMS-HPLC system. A second gap is the lack of robust methods for quantifying cellular metabolic endpoints for use in systems and cell biology applications. Understanding how to measure post-translational modifications, metabolic flux and metabolic rate with acceptable sensitivity, precision and reproducibility using substrate concentrations that are within the natural physiological range so that the normal metabolism is not perturbed is likewise important. This should become routine when the coupled AMS-HPLC system is available. Third, the ability to measure biological endpoints in humans is important and AMS offers the ability to do this safely. Our overall goal is to develop AMS and apply its quantitative capabilities to enable effective research in fundamental biology and human health.