Oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis are the dominant ATP‐generating pathways in mammalian metabolism. The balance between these two pathways is often shifted to execute cell‐specific functions in response to stimuli that promote activation, proliferation, or differentiation. However, measurement of these metabolic switches has remained mostly qualitative, making it difficult to discriminate between healthy, physiological changes in energy transduction or compensatory responses due to metabolic dysfunction. We therefore present a broadly applicable method to calculate ATP production rates from oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis using Seahorse XF Analyzer data and empirical conversion factors. We quantify the bioenergetic changes observed during macrophage polarization as well as cancer cell adaptation to in vitro culture conditions. Additionally, we detect substantive changes in ATP utilization upon neuronal depolarization and T cell receptor activation that are not evident from steady‐state ATP measurements. This method generates a single readout that allows the direct comparison of ATP produced from oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis in live cells. Additionally, the manuscript provides a framework for tailoring the calculations to specific cell systems or experimental conditions.

Proton leak exerts stronger control over ATP/ADP in mitochondria from clonal pancreatic beta-cells (INS-1E) than in those from rat skeletal muscle, due to the higher proton conductance of INS-1E mitochondria [Affourtit and Brand (2006) Biochem. J. 393, 151-159]. In the present study, we demonstrate that high proton leak manifests itself at the cellular level too: the leak rate (measured as myxothiazol-sensitive, oligomycin-resistant respiration) was nearly four times higher in INS-1E cells than in myoblasts. This relatively high leak activity was decreased more than 30% upon knock-down of UCP2 (uncoupling protein-2) by RNAi (RNA interference). The high contribution of UCP2 to leak suggests that proton conductance through UCP2 accounts for approx. 20% of INS-1E respiration. UCP2 knock-down enhanced GSIS (glucose-stimulated insulin secretion), consistent with a role for UCP2 in beta-cell physiology. We propose that the high mitochondrial proton leak in beta-cells is a mechanism which amplifies the effect of physiological UCP2 regulators on cytoplasmic ATP/ADP and hence on insulin secretion.