Circadian clocks are positioned at the cross road between nutritional cues and metabolic control. Thus, studying metabolism from a temporal and spatial perspective provides a unique niche that is expected to unveil novel fundamental principles related to basic metabolism and their nutritional control. In recent years my lab employed different methodologies, from biochemical approaches that identify protein-metabolite interactions through measurements of metabolic outputs in intact cells and living animals to high-throughput proteomics and metabolomics, to examine temporal and spatial aspects of metabolism. During my talk, I will discuss several examples emerging from our work on different groups of metabolites (e.g., lipids, polyamines) and on cellular metabolic processes (e.g., mitochondrial function) that shed new light in respect to their temporal and spatial intracellular organization and their nutritional control by different dietary regimens.
