Ion mobility mass spectrometer

植物能够合成数以千计的次生代谢物，在植物生活的各个方面以及与环境的相互作用中都具有特定的功能。由于无法具体检测和识别复杂混合物中的代谢物，阻碍了对这些代谢物的具体功能的机械理解的研究，例如人类健康或与其他生物的相互作用，例如在微生物区系中。经典的基于质谱学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与这些特征相对应。因此，个体代谢物的鉴定是非靶向代谢组学面临的最大挑战之一。近年来，离子迁移率-质谱仪(IM-MS)作为一种强大的非靶向代谢组学技术，已经成为分离代谢物同分异构体和生成多维数据的有效手段。离子迁移率技术根据离子在电场作用下的不同运动来分离离子，从而能够分离具有不同电荷、结构和构象的离子。因此，这项技术可以区分具有相同化学式的单个天然化合物，这是植物代谢物分析中的一大变化。我们的研究旨在了解控制叶圈(地上)和根际(地下)中植物-微生物和微生物-微生物相互作用的机制，牢牢植根于植物科学卓越集群(CEPLAS)的研究任务，并支持科隆大学的战略发展。到目前为止，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，我们建议购买环离子迁移率质谱仪，这将使我们能够在叶球和根际代谢物的复杂混合物中找到活性成分。对代谢网络的更全面的剖析将确定支配植物及其相关微生物群之间相互作用的特定代谢物，这将使人们能够利用这些代谢物来设计微生物群落，以在特定的环境条件下实现特定的功能。植物塑造其微生物区系，或微生物塑造其周围微生物群落的机制背后的相同原理，可以在其他生物中得到预期，并有助于更好地理解微生物区系在人类健康中的作用。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.