Native Electrospray-based Metabolomics Enables the Detection of Metal-binding Compounds

Aron, A. T.; Petras, D.; Schmid, R.; Gauglitz, J. M.; Buttel, I.; Antelo, L.; Zhi, H.; Saak, C. C.; Malarney, K. P.; Thines, E.; Dutton, R. J.; Raffatellu, M.; Dorrestein, P. C.

doi:10.1101/824888

bioRxiv · 10.1101/824888

Native Electrospray-based Metabolomics Enables the Detection of Metal-binding Compounds

Aron, A. T.·Petras, D.·Schmid, R.·Gauglitz, J. M.·Buttel, I.·Antelo, L.·Zhi, H.·Saak, C. C.·Malarney, K. P.·Thines, E.·Dutton, R. J.·Raffatellu, M.·Dorrestein, P. C.

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Abstract

Metals are essential for the molecular machineries of life, and microbes have evolved a variety of small molecules to acquire, compete for, and utilize metals. Systematic methods for the discovery of metal-small molecule complexes from biological samples are limited. Here we describe a two-step native electrospray ionization mass spectrometry method, in which double-barrel post-column metal-infusion and pH adjustment is combined with ion identity molecular networking, a rule-based informatics workflow. This method can be used to identify metal-binding compounds in complex samples based on defined mass (m/z) offsets of ion features with the same chromatographic profiles. As this native metal metabolomics approach can be easily implemented on any liquid chromatography-based mass spectrometry system, this method has the potential to become a key strategy for elucidating and understanding the role of metal-binding molecules in biology.

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Aron, A. T., Petras, D., Schmid, R., Gauglitz, J. M., Buttel, I., Antelo, L., Zhi, H., Saak, C. C., Malarney, K. P., Thines, E., Dutton, R. J., Raffatellu, M., Dorrestein, P. C.. 2019-10-30. Native Electrospray-based Metabolomics Enables the Detection of Metal-binding Compounds. https://doi.org/10.1101/824888

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