Silac

REDIRECT Mass spectrometry

SILAC (Stable isotope labeling with amino acids) is a mass spectrometry-based technique for measuring the level of expression of proteins in a cell culture. Two groups of cells are grown in culture, such as in a Petri dish. A group of cells in culture is often called a colony.

One colony is fed with media that was made with light isotopes of some atoms; the other colony is fed with media made with heavy isotopes of the same atoms. (These are stable isotopes, so the growth media are not radioactive.)

The two colonies are normally subjected to different conditions. For example, different temperature. Or, the cells can be genetically different. After the colonies have grown, proteomics techniques such as peptide mass fingerprinting can be used to measure differences in the levels of different proteins from one colony to the other.

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