L-Carnitine
Metabolic Research
Available sizes: 10 ml
The carnitine shuttle
Fatty acid oxidation happens in the mitochondrial matrix, but activated long-chain fatty acids cannot cross the inner membrane. The carnitine shuttle solves this in three steps: CPT1 on the outer membrane transfers the acyl group to carnitine; a translocase carries acylcarnitine across; CPT2 transfers it back to CoA inside.
CPT1 is the rate-limiting step of the whole pathway and is inhibited by malonyl-CoA, which is how the cell prevents simultaneous fat synthesis and fat oxidation. This is settled biochemistry and the anchor for everything else here.
Research areas
Fatty acid oxidation rates and substrate selection between fat and carbohydrate
Carnitine deficiency states, both primary genetic and secondary
Acylcarnitine profiling, a widely used diagnostic and research readout of metabolic flux
Mitochondrial function and metabolic flexibility
Exercise metabolism, where substrate selection is the measured variable
Read alongside
AICAR acts on the regulation of this pathway via AMPK and acetyl-CoA carboxylase. Lipo-C + Vitamin B12 is the formulation in which carnitine commonly appears alongside other cofactors.
Documentation and verification
Certificates of Analysis are published for tested products and batches. A certificate is a batch-specific record: it reports what was measured, by which method, on a stated date, against a batch identifier. It is evidence about the sample analysed at the time of analysis, and it is silent on attributes it does not list and on what has happened to the material since.
The batch number is the field that connects the document to a physical vial. Where the identifier on a vial does not appear on a certificate, the certificate does not describe that vial, however thorough the analysis behind it was. Batch records can be searched directly, and the guides below explain what each field establishes and what it does not.
- Verify a batchSearch a batch number for the certificate records published against it.
- How to read a certificate of analysisWhat each field reports, and the limits of what a certificate can establish.
- Certificate, specification and safety data sheetThree documents that answer three different questions.
- Storage and handlingWhat defined storage conditions mean, and why cold slows degradation.
- Batch numbers and traceabilityHow an identifier ties material to the analysis describing it.
Supplied for laboratory research use only. Not for human or veterinary use.