Ultra-high-throughput mass spectrometry for quantitative metabolomics

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Metabolomics refers to the quantitative measurement of the complement of small molecules (metabolites) found within a biological system. One way to identify such molecules relies on the determination of their masses, known as mass spectrometry. Mass spectrometry (MS), coupled to prior separation with either liquid or gas chromatography, dominates the metabolomics field for the analysis of these structurally diverse metabolites. However, this comes with a significant cost because the chromatography step, while valuable for separation of compounds, adds significant time to the analysis: 30 minutes per sample is typical.Three years ago we established the Centre for Metabolomics Research (CMR) within the University of Liverpool. In the CMR we are developing and applying metabolomics in many different fields including (amongst others) human physiology and healthy ageing, antimicrobial resistance, synthetic biology, industrial biotechnology and for the enhanced understanding of mammalian systems and crop development and resilience. We are also training the next generation of interdisciplinary metabolomics scientists and we are proud of our capabilities here.Our focus within the CMR has been to develop MS-based metabolomics, with up front 'slow' chromatography - this limits high sample throughput analysis as there is simply not enough time in the day to make these measurements. Therefore, what we still fundamentally lack are ultra-high-throughput methods for the analysis of specific metabolites. The instrument requested is the Echo Mass Spectrometry System from SCIEX. This is vital for us to be able to enhance our metabolomics capabilities and will turbo charge the speed of our metabolomics work with applications in many areas of bioscience research.We can confirm that this instrumentation is not available in CMR, the University of Liverpool, the North West in general, and indeed the manufacturers have confirmed that this will be the first such instrument embedded in any academic institution in the UK. The aim of this proposal is thus to secure this Echo MS-based instrument for an extensive User Community in Liverpool and elsewhere with ultra-high-throughput capability. With support from the University of Liverpool Shared Research Facilities this platform would be made available to other institutes as well as industrial partners thus enhancing the wider UK science base.