Ion mobility mass spectrometer

植物能够合成数千种次生代谢物，在植物生命的各个方面以及与环境的相互作用中具有特定的功能。由于无法在复杂混合物中具体检测和鉴定代谢物，因此无法从机理上了解这些代谢物的特定功能，例如人类健康或与其他生物体（例如微生物群）的相互作用。经典的基于质谱的分析能够确定代谢物的精确分子量并识别官能团，但数十种化合物可能符合这些特征。因此，鉴定个体代谢物是非靶向代谢组学的最大挑战之一。近年来，离子迁移质谱（IM-MS）作为一种非靶向代谢组学的强大技术，已成为分离代谢物异构体和生成多维数据的一种技术。离子迁移技术是根据离子在电场作用下的微分运动来分离离子，从而分离出具有不同电荷、结构和构象的离子。因此，该技术可以区分具有相同化学式的单个天然化合物，这是分析植物代谢物的一个步骤变化。我们的研究旨在了解在层层圈（地上）和根际圈（地下）中控制植物-微生物和微生物-微生物相互作用的机制，这是植物科学卓越集群（CEPLAS）的研究任务，也是科隆大学战略发展的基础。迄今为止，已经发现了几种在这些相互作用中起作用的代谢物，但由于缺乏分析能力，进一步的进展受到限制。因此，我们建议购买一台循环离子迁移率质谱仪，这将使我们能够在根际和根际代谢产物的复杂混合物中找到有效成分。对代谢网络的更全面的解剖将确定控制植物与其相关微生物群之间相互作用的特定代谢物，这将使利用这些代谢物来设计微生物群落在特定环境条件下实现特定功能成为可能。植物塑造其微生物群或微生物塑造其周围微生物群落的机制背后的相同原理可以在其他生物体中得到预期，并且可以有助于例如更好地理解微生物群在人类健康中的功能。IM-MS提供的新的分析能力是这一发展的关键。

Plants are able to synthesize thousands of secondary metabolites, with specific functions in all aspects of plant life and interaction with the environment. The research in the mechanistic understanding of the specific functions of these metabolites, e.g. human health or in interaction with other organisms, such as in the microbiota, is, hampered by the inability to specifically detect and identify the metabolites in complex mixtures. Classical mass-spectrometry based analyses are able to determine precise molecular weights of the metabolites and identify functional groups, but dozens of compounds may correspond to these characteristics. Therefore, identification of individual metabolites is one of the greatest challenges for untargeted metabolomics. Recently, ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS), which enables the separation of metabolite isomers and generation of multidimension data, has emerged as a powerful technology for untargeted metabolomics. Ion mobility technology separates ions according to their differential movements under the influence of an electric field, and enables to separate the ions with different charges, structures, and conformations. This technique thus can distinguish individual natural compounds with the same chemical formula, a step change in the analysis of plant metabolites. Our research aims at understanding mechanisms that govern plant-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions in the phyllosphere (above-ground) as well as in the rhizosphere (below-ground), is firmly embedded in the research mission of the Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS), and underpins the strategic development of the University of Cologne. To date several metabolites that act in these interactions have been uncovered, but further progress is limited by the lack of analytical capacity. We, therefore, propose to purchase a Cyclic Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometer, which will allow us to find active components in complex mixtures of phyllosphere and rhizosphere metabolites. A more comprehensive dissection of metabolic networks will identify specific metabolites governing the interactions between plants and their associated microbiota, which will enable to use such metabolites to engineer microbial communities to fulfil specific functions in particular environmental conditions. The same principles behind the mechanisms of plants shaping their microbiota, or microbes shaping microbial communities in their surroundings, can be expected in other organisms, and can contribute for instance to better understanding of the function of microbiota in human health. The new analytic capabilities provided by the IM-MS are the key to this development.