Hybrid-Massenspektrometer

本申请所要求的质谱仪应与一液相色谱装置连接，以鉴定和定量复杂的溶质混合物中的有机化合物。该装置应用于分析生命细胞的水溶液、代谢提取物。设想的主要应用是基于13C的代谢通量和微生物生产菌株的代谢组分析，这些菌株操作合成代谢途径来生产增值化合物。当在生命细胞中实施合成代谢途径时，经常会观察到工程细胞的意外生理反应，这可能表现为代谢通量分布的改变或生长迟缓。这种不必要的生理反应可能是由于未知代谢物的积累造成的，这些代谢物是由天然酶与新的合成代谢中间体发生未知的交叉反应而合成的。或者，它们的发生可能是由于合成酶对自然代谢物的未知活性所致。为了识别这些未知的代谢中间体，我们需要一台质谱仪，它在测量分子质量时提供极高的精度和分辨率。开发新的合成代谢途径和相应的微生物生产菌株是我们未来研究的主要重点。只有当我们目前的分析能力得到这种质谱仪的补充时，这些研究活动才能有效地进行。

The herein requested mass spectrometer shall be coupled to a liquid chromatography unit to identify and quantify organic compounds in complex solute mixtures.The device shall be employed for the analysis of aqueous, metabolic extracts of life cells. The envisaged main applications are 13C-based metabolic flux and metabolome analyses of microbial production strains, which operate synthetic metabolic pathways to produce value-added compounds. When synthetic metabolic pathways are implemented in life cells, frequently an unexpected physiological response of the engineered cells is observed which may manifest in altered metabolic flux distributions or in retarded growth. This unwanted physiological response may be caused by the accumulation of unknown metabolites, which are synthesized by unknown cross-reactivities of natural enzymes on the new, synthetic metabolic intermediates. Alternatively, they may occur due to uncharacterized activities of synthetic enzymes on natural metabolites. For the identification of these unknown metabolic intermediates we require a mass spectrometer which provides an extremely high accuracy and resolution in the measurement of molecular masses. The development of new synthetic metabolic pathways and the corresponding microbial production strains is a main focus of our future research. Only when our current analytical capacities are complemented by such a mass-spectrometer these research activities can be efficiently conducted.