Fast Determination of Absolute Metabolite Concentrations by Spatially-Encoded 2D NMR: Application to Breast Cancer Cell Extracts

Serge Akoka¹, Adrien Le Guennec¹, Illa Tea¹, Estelle Martineau¹, Benoit Charrier¹, Meerakhan Pathan¹, Patrick Giraudeau¹

Absolute metabolite concentrations from complex metabolic mixtures were measured using an approach based on a multi-scan single shot (M3S) strategy (derived from ultrafast 2D NMR). The analytical performance was compared to the one of conventional 2D NMR. On model metabolic mixtures, the precision was in the 1-4% range (versus 5-18% for the conventional approach), highlighting the superiority of the M3S approach for quantitative analysis. The M3S COSY approach was then applied to measure the absolute metabolite concentration of 14 major metabolites in three breast cancer cell line extracts, showing significant differences between cell lines.