Metabolic Flux Analysis: A Powerful Tool in Animal Cell Culture

Metabolic flux analysis (MFA) is being increasingly applied to animal cells as a tool for better understanding their metabolism in culture. The generated knowledge can be used to improve the productivity of biopharmaceutical processes, by optimizing feeding regimes, media formulation or engineering cell targets. Furthermore, biomedical research has also benefited from flux analysis studies by phenotyping diseased cells leading to the identification of therapeutic targets. Moreover, as drug-induced changes on cell metabolism can be readily inspected by MFA, this tool can help saving money and time in drug development. Nevertheless, comprehensive reviews with instructive guidance on the application of MFA to animal cell cultures can be scarcely found in the literature. Herein, different techniques and experimental settings for MFA studies will be addressed, including recent advances and overall trends, supplemented with relevant examples in several animal cell systems. A general picture on the subject will be depicted aiming at the design and development of new techniques for tackling prevailing challenges that need to be overcome in biopharmaceuticals production, biomedical research and toxicology.

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