A new paper just published by Irena Roci in Analytical Chemistry, combining FACS and isotope tracing to analyze the metabolism of complex cell populations. Congrats Irena!

I think this method will be instrumental in many studies to come. Several groups are working in this direction, but Irena’s paper is the first to critically evaluate the methodology, and shows that isotope labeling is an important step to achieve robust results. There are many conceivable applications: subtypes of cultured cells, co-culture models,  selection of cell populations at cell cycle phases or at other states by fluorescent markers …  the list goes on. Now we have a great tool to probe the metabolism of such specific cell populations. Exciting times!  :)