Clinical Technoshot: Bioenergetics Analysis Platform

Bioenergetics is the science that study the processes of energy conversion within cells. The alteration of bioenergetic phenotype is a hallmark of tumors including the most frequent breast, prostate, lung and colon cancers. In fact, there is the possibility that disturbing the particular energy processes of the cancer cell may represent a valid therapy. However, the dynamics and the regulation of bioenergetics processes during tumorigenesis remains largely unclear. 
Tools allowing fine analysis of mitochondrial energetics, carb and fatty acid oxidation are used in our department to associate genomic and epigenetic alteration with peculiar bioenergetics phenotypes of patient derived cancer cells. The identified reactions are then targeted by specific drugs or library of compounds to select for novel effective anticancer treatments.
These researches are supported by the IEO Bioenergetics Facility equipped with the Agilent Seahorse XFe96 live cell metabolic analyzer the allows allows the measurement real time of mitochondrial, glycolytic and beta-oxidation fluxes, in living cultured cell monolayers and spheroids.