Metabolic fingerprints of human primary endothelial and fibroblast cells

INTRODUCTION: Human primary cells originating from different locations within the body could differ greatly in their metabolic phenotypes, influencing both how they act during physiological/pathological processes and how susceptible/resistant they are to a variety of disease risk factors. A novel way to monitor cellular metabolism is through cell energetics assays, so we explored this approach with human primary cell types, as models of sclerotic disorders. OBJECTIVES: In order to better understand pathophysiological processes at the cellular level, our goals were to measure metabolic pathway activities of endothelial cells and fibroblasts, and determine their metabolic phenotype profiles. METHODS: Biolog Phenotype MicroArray™ technology was used for the first time to characterize metabolic phenotypes of diverse primary cells. These colorimetric assays enable detection of utilization of 367 specific biochemical substrates by human endothelial cells from the coronary artery (HCAEC), umbilical vein (HUVEC) and normal, healthy lung fibroblasts (NHLF). RESULTS: Adenosine, inosine, d-mannose and dextrin were strongly utilized by all three cell types, comparable to glucose. Substrates metabolized solely by HCAEC were mannan, pectin, gelatin and prevalently tricarballylic acid. HUVEC did not show any uniquely metabolized substrates whereas NHLF exhibited strong utilization of sugars and carboxylic acids along with amino acids and peptides. CONCLUSION: Taken together, we show for the first time that this simple energetics assay platform enables metabolic characterization of primary cells and that each of the three human cell types examined gives a unique and distinguishable profile. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11306-016-1024-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.