MRI: Acquisition of a liquid chromatograph mass spectrometer for microbial metabolomics

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

The PIs request funding to acquire a state of the art ultra high pressure liquid chromatograph coupled to a quadrupole time of flight mass spectrometer to study the metabolic function of microorganisms that have relevance in natural and engineered systems. Environmental metabolomics seeks to demonstrate and quantify the metabolic reactions that occur in microbial systems. New directions in proteomics, and even more so in metabolomics, bring biogeochemists closer to the chemistry of natural systems by enabling the measurement of the enzymes responsible for these reactions (proteomics), or the transformations of their substrates and products (metabolomics). While numerous high-end LC-MS instruments exist in research labs within the medical sciences, only a select few environmental microbiology labs nationwide have high-end instruments capable of addressing the complex problem of microbial function. Microbial metabolomics has the potential to transform our understanding of the metabolic capabilities of microbes and to understand at a biochemical level how microbes function and respond to environmental cues. The goals of this proposed equipment acquisition are to bring the field of mass spectrometry based metabolomics to the study of environmental microbiology and engineered microbial systems; to advance this field through the development of novel metabolomics approaches; to facilitate sharing of knowledge between investigators through a user group community; and to train the next generation of investigators in high mass accuracy mass spectrometry and its application to the study of the microbial world. Broader Impacts: Traditionally high end mass spectrometers are housed in specialized facility with dedicated personnel, where users submit samples for analysis without direct access to the instrument. The proposal here will make the instrument accessible to large number of postdoc, graduate students, and undergraduates including underrepresented groups after proper training, thus will greatly promote teaching, training and learning activities for mass spectrometry technologies. The method and technology developed will certainly be very useful for broad metabolomics community, where there still lacks a "standard" methodology. Program Recommendation: The Program recommends an award at the requested level.