Stable isotope labeling LC–MS for profiling the amine submetabolome in a D-lactate treated cell model

Background Alterations in the amine submetabolome are closely associated with cellular metabolic status and are important for understanding metabolic regulation under intervention conditions. In this study, a stable isotope labeling derivatization combined with liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) was employed to characterize alterations in the cellular amine submetabolome. Optimization of chromatographic separation and cellular metabolic quenching procedures improved the separation performance of amine metabolites while enabling more accurate preservation of the metabolic state at the time of sampling. Results The established method was applied to a D-lactate–treated BEAS-2B cell model to evaluate amine submetabolome alterations under different compound intervention conditions. The results demonstrated that selenomethionine (SeMet) and berberine alleviated D-lactate induced abnormalities in the amine submetabolome and showed metabolic regulatory effects consistent with tumor-suppressive trends observed under in vivo experiments. Significance Overall, this analytical strategy enables characterization of the amine submetabolome in complex biological samples and provides a reliable methodological reference for metabolome-based investigations of cellular metabolic alterations.