Physiological phenotyping of mammalian cell lines by enzymatic activity fingerprinting of key carbohydrate metabolic enzymes: a pilot and feasibility study

Objective
Enzymatic fingerprinting of key enzymes of glucose metabolism is a valuable analysis tool in cell physiological phenotyping of plant samples. Yet, a similar approach for mammalian cell line samples is missing. In this study, we applied semi-high throughput enzyme activity assays that were originally designed for plant samples and tested their feasibility in extracts of six frequently used mammalian cell lines (Caco2, HaCaT, C2C12, HEK293, HepG2 and INS-1E).

Results
Enzyme activities for aldolase, hexokinase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, phosphoglucoisomerase, phosphoglucomutase, phosphofructokinase could be detected in samples of one or more mammalian cell lines. We characterized effects of sample dilution, assay temperature and repeated freeze–thaw cycles causing potential biases. After careful selection of experimental parameters, the presented semi-high throughput methods could be established as useful tool for physiological phenotyping of cultured mammalian cells.