from Joshua D. Rabinowitz and Thomas Shenk writing in Cytomegaloviruses: From Molecular Pathogenesis to Intervention:
Metabolic changes at the whole organism and cellular levels have been described for many diseases, and the alterations often underlie disease progression. Known metabolites can be quantified by using liquid chromatography to fractionate a complex mixture of compounds with analysis of the output by mass spectrometry. This approach has been applied to quantify steady state levels of metabolites as well as to monitor the flux of isotopically labeled metabolites through pathways in human cytomegalovirus-infected fibroblasts. Cytomegalovirus hijacks cellular metabolism, markedly inducing flux through much of central carbon metabolism, including glycolysis, nucleotide metabolism, the tricarboxylic acid cycle and the fatty acid metabolic enzyme acetyl-CoA carboxylase. This review details the metabolic changes that accompany infection, discusses the current understanding of mechanisms underlying the changes, and considers the physiological roles of the changes in human cytomegalovirus replication and spread.
Further reading: Cytomegaloviruses: From Molecular Pathogenesis to Intervention