Transaminase reaction rates, transport activities and TCA cycle analysis by post-steady state 13C NMR.

In this work, we present the post-steady state analysis of the TCA cycle and a closed form solution to the rate of label washout from the C4 carbon of glutamic acid through the transaminases and the malate-aspartate shuttle and then through alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase. We demonstrate using a model of this problem that the rate of label washout depends not only on the flux through alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, but most importantly on the activity of the malate-aspartate shuttle as determined by the forward and reverse fluxes through the transaminases and by the rate of transport of glutamate and alpha-ketoglutarate across the mitochondrial membrane.