MRI: Acquisition of an Orbitrap Lumos Mass Spectrometer for Plant Proteomics and Lipidomics

位于密苏里州圣刘易斯的唐纳德·丹福斯植物科学中心获得了一项奖励，购买了一台用于植物蛋白质组学和脂质组学研究的高分辨率/精确质量轨道阱质谱仪。丹佛斯中心对质谱技术和方法开发的投资有利于植物发育和代谢的综合研究，并为更大的科学界提供指导协议。由这种新仪器支持的项目旨在通过详细了解植物如何将太阳提供的能量转化为生物质以及植物如何利用其内部生物钟（称为昼夜节律钟）感知和协调其生理机能以应对季节变化来提高粮食和生物燃料作物的生产力。 作为新技术开发的一部分，研究人员将与哈里斯-斯托州立大学的本科生和附近其他本科院校的学生进行一项特别研究，以挖掘预计将来自生物宝藏新仪器的大数据流。学生将获得与当代蛋白质组学技术，可能打开大门，在他们的职业生涯中进一步的生物分析研究的第一手经验。 这将增加在丹佛斯中心进行的教育推广。目前，通过积极的NSF-REU计划，招募在丹佛斯中心实验室工作的高中生获得课堂学分，参加高中生区域计划- STARS（学生和教师作为研究科学家），教师研讨会和互动式初中和高中指导计划，将我们的科学家与附近的学校联系起来。这些项目对丹佛斯中心加强植物科学界的核心使命目标至关重要。长期目标是提高植物生产力，i）熟练地养活不断增长的世界人口，ii）提供可持续的石油原料替代品，iii）提供有用的生物活性化合物;所有这些都旨在提高生活质量。需要先进的质谱仪器进行复杂的稳定同位素标记实验（放射性同位素标记的替代品），并用于表征细胞中水平非常低的蛋白质的翻译后修饰。理解植物生化功能的一个主要障碍是我们对代谢和蛋白质的不完全表征，代谢和蛋白质水平的动态，包括它们的翻译后修饰（PTM），是建立植物表型的连接网络的结果。这些生物分子的测量对于评估植物健康和对变化的环境的反应至关重要;然而，在植物王国中发现了数十万种代谢物，生物体具有超过一百万种蛋白质形式，其丰度变化了许多数量级，并且随着时间动态变化。美国国家科学基金会资助的项目和唐纳德·丹福斯植物科学中心及周边社区的其他项目的研究工作正在通过对丰度低、高度动态的蛋白质和代谢物的方法开发来推进科学，并将通过这项技术得到极大的扩展。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

An award is made to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Saint Louis, Missouri to purchase a high resolution/accurate mass Orbitrap mass spectrometer for plant proteomics and lipidomics studies. The investment in mass spectrometry technology and method development at the Danforth Center benefits integrated studies of plant development and metabolism and provides guiding protocols for the greater scientific community. The projects supported by this new instrumentation aim to increase productivity of food and biofuel crops through a detailed understanding of how plants turn energy provided by the sun to biomass and how plants sense and coordinate their physiology in response to seasonal change using their internal biological timepiece known as the circadian clock. As part of the development of new technologies, the investigators will perform a special study with undergraduates from Harris-Stowe State University and other nearby undergraduate institutions' students to mine the large data stream anticipated to come from the new instrument for biological treasure. The students will get firsthand experience with the contemporary proteomics techniques that may open the door to further bioanalytical studies in their careers. This will add to the educational outreach taking place at the Danforth Center. Currently, the training of tomorrow's scientists occurs through an active NSF-REU program, recruitment of high school students that work in Danforth Center laboratories for classroom credit, participation in a regional program for high school students - STARS (Students and Teachers As Research Scientists), workshops for teachers and an interactive middle- and high school mentoring program that connects our scientists with nearby schools. These programs are essential to core Danforth Center mission goals to strengthen the plant science community.The long-term goal is to improve plant productivity that: i) proficiently feeds a growing world population, ii) provides sustainable feed-stock alternatives to petroleum and iii) supplies useful bioactive compounds; all designed to improve quality of life. Advanced mass spectrometry instrumentation is needed perform complex stable isotope labeling experiments (an alternative to radioactive isotope labeling) and for characterizing post-translational modifications on proteins that are present a very low level in cells. A major impediment to understanding biochemical function in plants is our incomplete characterization of metabolism and proteins, the cellular machines that it. The dynamism of metabolite and protein levels, including their post-translational modifications (PTMs), are the result of linked networks that establish plant phenotype. Measurement of these biomolecules is critical to assessing plant health and response to changing environments; however, there are hundreds of thousands of metabolites found in the plant kingdom and organisms have more than a million of proteoforms that vary in abundance by many orders of magnitude and that change dynamically with time. Research efforts on NSF-funded and other projects at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and surrounding community are advancing science through methods development on scantly low abundance and highly dynamic proteins and metabolites and will be greatly extended by this technology.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.