Tissue-specific metabolic reprogramming drives nutrient flux in diabetic complications

Diabetes is associated with altered metabolism, but how altered metabolism contributes to the development of complications such as diabetic kidney disease is unknown. We used a systems approach with transcriptomics and mass spectrometry (MS)-based metabolomics to determine alterations in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in kidney cortex tissue from 24-week-old BKS db/db diabetic mice and db/+ controls. Glomerular-deprived kidney cortex (kidney proximal tubule) gene expression was profiled and compared with metabolite data. Transcriptomic and metabolomic profiling demonstrated an increase in both glycolysis and fatty acid beta-oxidation, Glomerular-deprived kidney cortex RNA was extracted using the RNeasy Mini Kit and processed for hybridization on Affymetrix GeneChip Mouse Genome 430 2.0 microarrays.