Cancer Biology

Like all animals, Drosophila shows robust fat (triglyceride) turnover, i.e., they synthesize, store and utilize triglyceride for their daily metabolic needs. The protocol describes a simple assay to measure this turnover of triglycerides in Drosophila.

Two enantiomers of 2-hydroxyglutarate (2HG), L (L2HG) and D (D2HG), are metabolites of unknown function in mammalian cells that were initially associated with separate and rare inborn errors of metabolism resulting in increased urinary excretion of 2HG linked to neurological deficits in children (Chalmers et al., 1980; Duran et al., 1980; Kranendijk et al., 2012). More recently, investigators have shown that D2HG is produced by mutant isocitrate dehydrogenase enzymes associated with a variety of human malignancies, such as acute myeloid leukemia, glioblastoma multiforme, and cholangiocarcinoma (Cairns and Mak, 2013; Dang et al., 2009; Ward et al., 2010). By contrast, we and others have shown that L2HG accumulates in response to cellular reductive stressors like hypoxia, activation of hypoxia inducible factors, and mitochondrial electron transport chain defects (Oldham et al., 2015; Reinecke et al., 2011; Intlekofer et al., 2015; Mullen et al., 2015). Each enantiomer is produced and metabolized in independent biochemical pathways in reactions catalyzed by separate enzymes and utilizing different cofactors with presumably different consequences for cellular metabolism (Kranendijk et al., 2012). Therefore, as research into the roles of D2HG and L2HG in human metabolism continues, it becomes increasingly important for investigators to consider each enantiomer independently (Struys, 2013). Several methods for quantification of biochemically relevant enantiomers in general have been developed and typically include enzymatic assays using enzymes specific for one enantiomeric species or the other, the use of chiral chromatography medium to facilitate chromatographic separation of enantiomers prior to spectroscopy, or the use of chiral derivatization reagents to convert a mixture of enantiomers to diastereomers with differing physical and chemical properties facilitating their chromatographic separation. In this protocol, we report the adaptation of a previously published derivatization method using diacetyl-L-tartaric anhydride (DATAN) for the quantification of 2HG enantiomers (Figure 1) (Oldham et al., 2015; Struys et al., 2004).


Figure 1. Reaction scheme for the derivatization protocol

2-Methylthio-N⁶-isopentenyladenosine (ms²i⁶A) is an evolutionally conserved posttranscriptional modification found at position 37 of four mammalian mitochondrial tRNAs, mt-tRNA^Ser(UCN), mt-tRNA^Trp, mt-tRNA^Phe and mt-tRNA^Tyr. The ms² modification in ms²i⁶A strengthens codon-anticodon interaction and contributes to accurate and efficient decoding. Deficiency of ms² modifications impairs mitochondrial protein synthesis, which ultimately leads to the development of myopathy in mice and patients having mitochondrial diseases. Therefore, the level of ms² could be utilized as an indicator that reflects the status of mitochondrial protein synthesis. Here, we describe a simple and fast quantitative PCR-based method to measure the ms² level in total RNA sample.