Quantitative imaging of deuterated metabolic tracers in biological tissues with nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry.

In the field of secondary ion mass spectrometry at nanometer scale (NanoSIMS), configuration of parallel detectors to routinely measure isotope ratios in sub-100 nm domains brings classical stable isotope tracer studies from the whole tissue level down to the suborganelle level. Over the past decade, the marriage of stable isotope tracers with NanoSIMS has been applied to a range of fundamental biological questions that were largely inaccessible by other means. Although multiplexed measurement of different stable isotope tracers is feasible, in practice there remains a gap in the current analytical capacity to efficiently measure stable isotopes commonly utilized in tracer studies. One such example is the measurement of deuterated tracers. The most obvious approach to measuring deuterium/hydrogen isotope ratios is at mass 2/1. However, the radius of the magnetic sector limits concomitant measurement of other masses critical to multiplexed exploration of biological samples. Here we determine the experimental parameters to measure deuterated tracers in biological samples using the C2H- polyatomic ion species (C2D-/C2H-) while operating the NanoSIMS at a reduced Mass Resolving Power of 14,000. Through control of the sputtering parameters, we demonstrate that there is an analytical window during which the C2D-/C2H- isotope ratio can be measured with sufficient precision for biological studies where the degree of D-labeling is typically well above natural abundance. We provide validation of this method by comparing the C2D measurement of D-water labeling in the murine small intestine relative to measurements of native D/H conducted in the same analytical fields. Additional proof-of-concept demonstrations include measurement of D-water, D-glucose, and D-thymidine in biological specimens. Therefore, this study provides a practical template for deuterium-based tracer studies in biological systems.