. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Aug 15.

Published in final edited form as: Arch Biochem Biophys. 2017 Mar 2;628:123–131. doi: 10.1016/j.abb.2017.02.009

Table 1.

Commonly used stable isotope tracers

Tracer	Pathways Probed	References
[U-¹³C]-glucose	Glycolysis, PPP, TCA cycle, hexosamine, nucleotide, and lipid biosynthesis	[3, 53]
[¹³C1,2]-glucose	Non-oxidative vs. oxidative PPP	[54, 55]
[¹³C3,4]-glucose	PC anaplerosis	[56, 57]
¹³C-1 glucose	Glucose metabolism in vivo
[U-¹³C,¹⁵N]-glutamine	Glutaminolysis, nucleotide biosynthesis, TCA cycle, fatty acid biosynthesis, amino acid metabolism	[53, 58, 59]
[U-¹³C]-fatty acids e.g. octanoate	β-oxidation, fatty acid biosynthesis	[26, 60]
[¹³C]-serine	Serine metabolism, one-carbon metabolism, lipid biosynthesis	[61]
[¹³C]-glycerol	Lipid biosynthesis	[62]
¹³C₁/¹³C₂ pyr	LDH reaction/DNP	[63]
¹³C₆,²H₇	Glycolysis/PPP DNP	[64]