Mass Spectrometry-Based High-Throughput Quantification of Bioproducts in Liquid Culture

Anal Chem. 2023 Feb 28;95(8):4067-4076. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.2c04845. Epub 2023 Feb 15.

Abstract

To meet the ever-increasing need for high-throughput screening in metabolic engineering, information-rich, fast screening methods are needed. Mass spectrometry (MS) provides an efficient and general approach for metabolite screening and offers the capability of characterizing a broad range of analytes in a label-free manner, but often requires a range of sample clean-up and extraction steps. Liquid extraction surface analysis (LESA) coupled MS is an image-guided MS surface analysis approach that directly samples and introduces metabolites from a surface to MS. Here, we combined the advantages of LESA-MS and an acoustic liquid handler with stable isotope-labeled internal standards. This approach provides absolute quantitation of target chemicals from liquid culture-dried droplets and enables high-throughput quantitative screening for microbial metabolites. In this study, LESA-MS was successfully applied to quantify several different metabolites (itaconic acid, triacetic acid lactone, and palmitic acid) from different yeast strains in different mediums, demonstrating its versatility, accuracy, and efficiency across a range of microbial engineering applications.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • High-Throughput Screening Assays*
  • Mass Spectrometry / methods