Analysis of metabolically labeled inositol phosphate messengers by NMR

Inositol phosphates (InsPs) are an important group of eukaryotic messengers and mediate a wide range of processes. To elucidate the biological functions of these molecules, robust techniques to characterize inositol phosphate metabolism at the cellular level are highly sought after. This chapter provides a detailed protocol for the preparation of ¹³C-labeled myo-inositol, its use for metabolic labeling of mammalian and yeast cells, and the quantitative analysis of intracellular InsP pools from cell extracts using NMR spectroscopy.