Abstract

Brain tissue metabolism is distributed across several cell types and subcellular compartments, which activate at different times and with different temporal patterns. The introduction of genetically-encoded fluorescent indicators that are imaged using time-lapse microscopy has opened the possibility of studying brain metabolism at cellular and sub-cellular levels. There are indicators for sugars, monocarboxylates, Krebs cycle intermediates, amino acids, cofactors, and energy nucleotides, which inform about relative levels, concentrations and fluxes. This review offers a brief survey of the metabolic indicators that have been validated in brain cells, with some illustrative examples from the literature. Whereas only a small fraction of the metabolome is currently accessible to fluorescent probes, there are grounds to be optimistic about coming developments and the application of these tools to the study of brain disease.

Original languageEnglish
Article number106211
Pages (from-to)106211
JournalNeurobiology of Disease
Volume184
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank Karen Everett for critical reading of the manuscript and the members of the Metabolism Group at CECs for helpful discussions. This work was funded partly by Fondecyts 1200026 (LFB), 1230145 (LFB), 11190678 (IR) and 1230682 (IR), and by ANID-BMBF 180045 (LFB).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Neurology

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