Metabolic Landscape

Every second of every day, countless chemical reactions take place in the cells all across our body, allowing us to breathe, eat, move and think. These chemical transformations form an unbelievably complex network, collectively known as metabolism, which the development of a new imaging technique, computational molecular phenotyping (CMP), is now allowing us to observe. CMP involves labelling a host of small particles using antibodies, then overlaying these images to create a colour-coded map revealing the chemical composition of each cell. Pictured is mouse kidney tissue; staining three small molecules produced as food is broken down (aspartate, glutamine and glutathione, in red, blue and green respectively) shows that different groups of cells in the same organ can be performing different reactions at the same time. The production and breakdown of glutamine is of particular interest, as this molecule is involved in many key processes in cancerous cells.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Image by Wellcome Image Award Finalists Jefferson R. Brown, Robert E. Marc, Bryan W. Jones, Glen Prusky & Nazia Alam
• University of Utah, USA
• Copyright held by the Wellcome Trust
• Research published in Clinical Cancer Research, March 2015