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

PI 请求资金购买一台最先进的超高压液相色谱仪，并配有四极杆飞行时间质谱仪，以研究与自然和工程系统相关的微生物的代谢功能。环境代谢组学旨在证明和量化微生物系统中发生的代谢反应。蛋白质组学的新方向，尤其是代谢组学的新方向，通过测量负责这些反应的酶（蛋白质组学）或其底物和产物的转化（代谢组学），使生物地球化学家更接近自然系统的化学。 虽然医学研究实验室中存在大量高端 LC-MS 仪器，但全国范围内只有少数环境微生物实验室拥有能够解决微生物功能复杂问题的高端仪器。微生物代谢组学有潜力改变我们对微生物代谢能力的理解，并在生化水平上了解微生物如何发挥作用以及对环境信号的反应。此次拟议设备采购的目标是将基于质谱的代谢组学领域引入环境微生物学和工程微生物系统的研究；通过开发新的代谢组学方法来推进这一领域；通过用户群体社区促进研究者之间的知识共享；并培训下一代高精度质谱研究人员及其在微生物世界研究中的应用。 更广泛的影响：传统上，高端质谱仪安装在配备专职人员的专门设施中，用户无需直接访问仪器即可提交样品进行分析。这里的建议将使大量博士后、研究生和本科生，包括经过适当培训的弱势群体能够使用该仪器，从而极大地促进质谱技术的教学、培训和学习活动。所开发的方法和技术对于广泛的代谢组学界来说肯定非常有用，因为代谢组学界仍然缺乏“标准”方法。 计划推荐：该计划推荐按所要求的级别授予奖项。

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.