Metabolomics & Systems Biology

Biography

Biography: Jian Zhi Hu

Abstract

Metabolomics studies on biological tissues are of significance since a disease is often associated with a specific tissue or organ malfunction. In this talk, high resolution NMR metabolic profiling techniques on biological tissues and live objects will be discussed. I’ll start with traditional liquid state 1H NMR metabolic profiling on tissue extracts using metastatic melanoma in C57BL/6J mouse spleen as an example to illustrate the procedures and methods associated with tissue extraction, metabolic profiling, data analysis, biostatics and bioinformatics. With this example, we are able to identify 73 metabolites with estimated concentrations in spleen tissue ranged from as low as 6 uM to as high as 25mM in the hydrophilic extracts of a spleen. The second part of the talk will cover the topic of high resolution magic angle spinning (MAS) NMR metabolomics on intact biological tissues. Fast MAS using a sample spinning rate of several kHz or more that is destructive to the integrity of a biological tissue will be discussed first, followed by slow-MAS NMR metabolomics using a sample spinning rate of 40 to about 200 Hz that is essentially non-destructive to biological tissues and even small intact live biological objects such as live insects and bugs. Finally, ultra-slow MAS NMR metabolomics using a sample spinning rate of 1-6 Hz will be introduced that is non-destructive to a live laboratory animal such as a mouse.