Determination of cell volume as part of metabolomics experiments.

Cells regulate their cell volume, but cell volumes may change in response to metabolic and other perturbations. Many metabolomics experiments use cultured cells to measure changes in metabolites in response to physiological and other experimental perturbations, but the metabolomics workflow by mass spectrometry only determines total metabolite amounts in cell culture extracts. To convert metabolite amount to metabolite concentration requires knowledge of the number and volume of the cells.

Differential effects of the cystic fibrosis lung inflammatory environment on mesenchymal stromal cells.

Growing evidence demonstrates that human mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) modify their in vivo anti-inflammatory actions depending on the specific inflammatory environment encountered. Understanding this better is crucial to refine MSC-based cell therapies for lung and other diseases. Using acute exacerbations of cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease as a model, the effects of ex vivo MSC exposure to clinical bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) samples, as a surrogate for the in vivo clinical lung environment, on MSC viability, gene expression, secreted cytokines, and mitochondrial function were compared with effects of BALF collected from healthy volunteers.