A high sensitivity elemental mass spectrometry facility to support metallo-biology research on the Norwich Research Park

金属对所有形式的生命都是必不可少的，在生命所依赖的许多反应中发挥着核心作用，包括呼吸和光合作用。然而，使金属成为必需品的特性也意味着它们可能具有极强的毒性，因此生物体通常进化出高度复杂的系统，通过这些系统，它们可以管理金属的吸收，利用和解毒。在某些情况下，如铁，金属可能难以获得足够的数量。虽然铁在地壳中含量丰富，但它是高度不溶性的，这严重限制了它对生物体（包括人类）的可用性，因此，缺铁是全球最普遍的营养缺乏症。该应用程序汇集了东安格利亚大学，约翰英尼斯中心和Quadram生物科学研究所的一组国际领先的研究人员。它的重点是了解金属如何发挥作用，它们如何被细胞/生物体处理，以及如何利用这些知识为我们的利益服务，例如：开发新的方法来干扰致病细菌中的基本金属依赖途径;生产具有增加金属营养含量的改良粮食作物;以及开发基于天然金属酶系统的生物技术过程。所有这些项目的进展完全取决于能否准确测量金属浓度。例如，在开发改良粮食作物时，研究人员必须能够测量作物的营养金属（铁和锌）含量，以及镉等有毒金属的浓度，以确保增加的金属含量仅限于具有营养价值的金属。因此，为了促进这些项目并使其能够以新的方式发展，该申请寻求支持购买一种新的仪器，即一种质谱仪，使研究人员能够以极高的精度和灵敏度测量各种生物样品中不同元素的含量，包括金属，但也包括硫和磷。

Metals are essential for all forms of life, playing central roles in many of the reactions on which life depends, including, for example, respiration and photosynthesis. However, the properties that make metals essential also mean that they are potentially extremely toxic, and so living organisms have evolved often highly sophisticated systems through which they manage the uptake, utilisation and detoxification of metals. In some cases, such as iron, the metal can be difficult to acquire in sufficient quantities. Although iron is abundant in the earth's crust, it is highly insoluble and this severely limits its availability to living organisms, including humans, and, as a result, iron deficiency is the most widespread global nutritional deficiency. This application brings together a group of internationally leading researchers at the University of East Anglia, John Innes Centre and Quadram Institute Bioscience. It is focussed on understanding how metals function, how they are handled by cells/organisms and how this knowledge can be exploited for our benefit, for example: in developing news ways to interfere with essential metal-dependent pathways in disease-causing bacteria; in generating improved food crops with increased metal nutritional content; and in developing biotechnological processes that are based on natural metalloenzyme systems. Progress in all these projects is absolutely dependent on being able to accurately measure metal concentrations. For example, in developing improved food crops, researchers must be able to measure the nutritional metal (iron and zinc) contents of the crops but also concentrations of toxic metals such as cadmium to ensure that increased metal levels are confined only to those of nutritional value. Thus, to facilitate these projects and to allow them to develop in new ways, the application seeks support for the purchase of a new instrument, a type of mass spectrometer, which enables researchers to measure with great accuracy and sensitivity the amounts of different elements, including metals, but also sulfur and phosphorus, in a range of biological samples.