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Mass Spectrometry-Based Microbial Metabolomics

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Microbial Systems Biology

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 881))

Abstract

Through the characterization of metabolic pathways, metabolomics is able to illuminate the activities of a cell at the functional level. However, the metabolome, which is comprised of hundreds of chemically diverse metabolites, is rather difficult to monitor. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based profiling methods are increasingly being utilized for this purpose. To this end, MS is often coupled to the separation techniques gas chromatography (GC), liquid chromatography (LC), and capillary electrophoresis (CE). The mass-based selectivity that the MS provides, together with the chromatographic or electrophoretic separation of analytes, creates hyphenated techniques that are ideally suited to the measurement of large numbers of metabolites from microbial extracts. In this chapter, we describe GC-MS, LC-MS, and CE-MS methods that are applicable to microbial metabolomics experiments.

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Acknowledgments

This work conducted by ENIGMA—Ecosystems and Networks Integrated with Genes and Molecular Assemblies—was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

This work was also part of the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute (http://www.jbei.org) supported by the Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, of the U.S. Department of Energy through Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physical Biosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Edward E. K. Baidoo, Peter I. Benke & Jay D. Keasling

  2. Joint BioEnergy Institute, Emeryville, CA, USA

    Edward E. K. Baidoo, Peter I. Benke & Jay D. Keasling

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Jay D. Keasling

  4. Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Jay D. Keasling

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  1. Edward E. K. Baidoo
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  2. Peter I. Benke
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  3. Jay D. Keasling
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Correspondence to Jay D. Keasling .

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  1. Physics & Life Sciences Directorate, Biosciences & Biotechnology Div., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, East Avenue 7000, Livermore, 94551, California, USA

    Ali Navid

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Baidoo, E.E.K., Benke, P.I., Keasling, J.D. (2012). Mass Spectrometry-Based Microbial Metabolomics. In: Navid, A. (eds) Microbial Systems Biology. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 881. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-827-6_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-827-6_9

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