A brief harvesting-freezing delay significantly alters the kidney metabolome and leads to false positive and negative results.

Abnormalities in distinct metabolic pathways have been associated with many forms of kidney disease. Metabolomics analyses can be used to determine organ-specific metabolic fingerprints. However, conventional harvesting methods depend on post-euthanasia tissue harvest, which results in ischemia conditions and metabolome changes that could introduce artifacts into the final studies. We optimized a clamp-freezing technique for kidney harvesting and freezing, significantly reducing ischemia and freezing times and granting a closer snapshot of in vivo metabolism. In this study, we characterized and compared the metabolome of kidneys harvested using our approach vs. traditional techniques to determine which metabolites are preferentially affected by a brief lapse of ischemia and freezing delay and which are more stable. We used Sprague Dawley rats as a model of wild-type (WT) kidneys and PCK, polycystic kidney disease (PKD) rats as a model of CKD kidneys. Finally, we compared the metabolic profile of clamp-frozen and delayed WT and PKD-kidneys to determine which metabolic changes are most likely observed in vivo in PKD and which could be subjected to false positive or negative results. Our data indicate that a short harvesting-freezing delay is sufficient to impart profound metabolic changes in WT and PKD kidneys. Interestingly, while the delay had a similar effect in WT and PKD, there were notable differences, leading to false positive and negative results when comparing these genotypes. The data obtained indicate that the quick clamp-freezing technique for kidney metabolomics provides a more accurate interpretation of the in vivo metabolic changes associated with the disease state.