A simple, anesthesia-free infusion technique for in vivo metabolic tracing.

Overview

Authors: Yumi Kim¹, Samantha Caldwell¹, Meredith Long¹, Dominique Abrahams², Margi Baldwin², Gina M DeNicola¹

ORCID iDs: Yumi Kim, Meredith Long, Dominique Abrahams, Gina M DeNicola

Department of Metabolism and Physiology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, FL 33612, USA
Division of Comparative Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 12901, USA

Institutions: Moffitt Cancer Center (United States); University of South Florida (United States)

Journal: Science advances, volume 12, issue 37, article eaeg1157

Dates: received 3 February 2026; accepted 31 July 2026; published online 11 September 2026; in print September 2026

Type: Research article · Language: English

License: CC BY

Identifiers: DOI 10.1126/sciadv.aeg1157 · PMID 42726876 · PMCID PMC13564915 · OpenAlex W7212256766

Open access: gold, a free copy (OpenAlex)

Status: data only

Categories: mouse (organism)

Methods: Statistics, Smoothing, state filtering, decompositions, Machine learning

MeSH: Isoflurane*, Metabolic Flux Analysis*, Amino Acids, Anesthesia, Animals, Carbon Isotopes, Carnitine, Cysteine, Cystine, Fatty Acids, Isotope Labeling, Mice (* major topic)

Topic: Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications (Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging, Medicine), according to OpenAlex

Funding: NCI NIH HHS (P30 CA076292, P01 CA250984)

Citations: not cited yet (Europe PMC); 37 references in the paper

Abstract

Accurate metabolic flux analysis requires tracer delivery that preserves physiological metabolism. Current methods may distort metabolism through isoflurane anesthesia, surgical stress, or complex procedures. We demonstrate that isoflurane anesthesia profoundly alters serum and tissue metabolism across multiple pathways. In serum, acylcarnitines and fatty acids were broadly decreased, whereas amino acid metabolites and select nucleotide species were increased. Across multiple organs, isoflurane induced coordinated metabolic remodeling and distinct tissue-specific responses, including glycolytic remodeling in the brain and amino acid accumulation in the pancreas. To address these metabolic disturbances, we established a nonsurgical tail vein catheterization method completed in minutes under brief isoflurane anesthesia that enables multihour tracer infusion in awake, freely moving mice. Using U-13C6-cystine infusion, this method achieved robust cysteine labeling and downstream labeling comparable to jugular infusion while maintaining circulating cystine pools closer to physiological levels. This platform provides a practical approach for in vivo stable isotope tracing under more physiological conditions.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Code

The paper links to its data, not to its authors' code: see the Data section.

The paper's code and data availability statement is in the Data section.

Tracing map

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Data

Datasets cited

doi:10.5061/dryad.zw3r228nd, at Dryad; found in DataCite

Data, code, and materials availability

All data and code needed to evaluate and reproduce the results in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. This study did not generate new materials. Source data have been deposited in the Dryad Digital Repository and are available at https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi%3A10.5061/dryad.zw3r228nd (https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.zw3r228nd). No custom code was generated in this study.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.

Versions

The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.

Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 6 authors, 12 MeSH terms, 1 funder, 37 references.

Cite

This paper

Kim, Y., Caldwell, S., Long, M., Abrahams, D., Baldwin, M., & DeNicola, G. M. (2026). A simple, anesthesia-free infusion technique for in vivo metabolic tracing. Science advances, 12(37), eaeg1157. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aeg1157

BibTeX

@article{kim2026simple, author = {Kim, Yumi and Caldwell, Samantha and Long, Meredith and Abrahams, Dominique and Baldwin, Margi and DeNicola, Gina M}, title = {{A simple, anesthesia-free infusion technique for in vivo metabolic tracing}}, journal = {Science advances}, year = {2026}, month = sep, volume = {12}, number = {37}, pages = {eaeg1157}, publisher = {American Association for the Advancement of Science}, issn = {2375-2548}, doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aeg1157}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aeg1157}, pmid = {42726876}, pmcid = {PMC13564915} }

RIS

TY - JOUR AU - Kim, Yumi AU - Caldwell, Samantha AU - Long, Meredith AU - Abrahams, Dominique AU - Baldwin, Margi AU - DeNicola, Gina M TI - A simple, anesthesia-free infusion technique for in vivo metabolic tracing T2 - Science advances J2 - Sci Adv PY - 2026 DA - 2026/09/11 VL - 12 IS - 37 SP - eaeg1157 SN - 2375-2548 PB - American Association for the Advancement of Science DO - 10.1126/sciadv.aeg1157 UR - https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aeg1157 LA - en ER -

CSL-JSON

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