Changes in intracellular metabolite pools during growth of adherent MDCK cells in two different media.

In bioprocess engineering, the growth of continuous cell lines is mainly studied with respect to the changes in cell concentration, the resulting demand for substrates, and the accumulation of extracellular metabolites. The underlying metabolic process rests upon intracellular metabolite pools and their interaction with enzymes in the form of substrates, products, or allosteric effectors. Here, we quantitatively analyze time courses of 29 intracellular metabolites of adherent Madin-Darby canine kidney cells during cultivation in a serum-containing medium and a serum-free medium. The cells, which originated from the same pre-culture, showed similar overall growth behavior and only slight differences in their demand for the substrates glucose (GLC), glutamine (GLN), and glutamate (GLU). Analysis of intracellular metabolites, which mainly cover the glycolytic pathway, the citric acid cycle, and the nucleotide pools, revealed surprisingly similar dynamics for both cultivation conditions. Instead of a strong influence of the medium, we rather observed a growth phase-specific behavior in glycolysis and in the lower citric acid cycle. Furthermore, analysis of the lower part of glycolysis suggests the well-known regulation of pyruvate kinase by fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. The upper citric acid cycle (citrate, cis-aconitate, and isocitrate) is apparently uncoupled from the lower part (α-ketoglutarate, succinate, fumarate, and malate), which is in line with the characteristics of a truncated cycle. Decreased adenosine triphosphate and guanosine triphosphate pools, as well as a relatively low energy charge soon after inoculation of cells, indicate a high demand for cellular energy and the consumption of nucleotides for biosynthesis. We finally conclude that, with sufficient availability of substrates, the dynamics of GLC and GLN/GLU metabolism is influenced mainly by the cellular growth regime and regulatory function of key enzymes.