Fig. 1

The extent of C8 and C10 metabolism is comparable and promotes astrocyte glutamine synthesis in brain slices. Metabolism of [U-¹³C]C8 (red bars) and [U-¹³C]C10 (orange bars) in mouse cerebral cortical slices. [U-¹³C]C8 and [U-¹³C]C10 can undergo β-oxidation and hereby enter the TCA cycle as ¹³C acetylCoA. The entry of ¹³C acetylCoA will give rise to ¹³C accumulation in TCA cycle intermediates and amino acids (presented as the weighted average of ¹³C accumulation, molecular carbon labeling, MCL). [U-¹³C]C8 and [U-¹³C]C10 were provided at a concentration of 200 µM in addition to 5 mM d-glucose. Glutamate can be converted to glutamine by glutamine synthetase (GS) selectively expressed in astrocytes. In GABAergic neurons, glutamate can be converted to GABA by glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) activity. C8: octanoic acid. C10: decanoic acid. Mean ± SEM, n = 6 from individual animals, repeated measures 1-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc test, *p < 0.05