Anaheim, May 2024 – Following the arrival of the TMIC Li-Node team at the annual American Society for Mass Spectrometry Conference (ASMS), one of our leading members on metabolomic profiling, Dr. Xian Luo, presented his research on the applications of a microflow LC-MS platform on analyzing plant embryo development.
Using single pea embryos, his research confronts the challenges of achieving in-depth metabolomic profiling of single plant embryos due to the limited amount of plant materials available for profiling. Analyzing the development of a single pea embryo in its early stages can enhance our understanding of embryo heterogeneity, offering accurate predictions of protein yield for the agricultural industry.
With a chemical isotope labeling (CIL) technique combined with microflow LC-MS to identify metabolites from a single pea embryo, Dr. Lou was able to detect on average 970 ± 115 metabolites from a submetabolome amine-/phenol- channel, and a further 683 ± 41 metabolites with a carboxyl channel. This was done using TMIC’s extensive tiered-library of metabolites.
This technique proved to be superior to CIL nanoLC-MS, as the nanoLC column is prone to clogging due its small internal diameter. Using an intermediate scale between analytical (2.1 mm) and nano (75 μm) with a microflow column of 1 mm, labeled embryo extracts could be injected directly onto the microflow LC-MS without reducing the labeling reagent concentration or additional desalting steps. The platform performance remained robust even after hundreds of injections.
This demonstrates the high sensitivity and practicality of the microflow CIL LC-MS platform, offering the best in comprehensive metabolomics profiling.
If you would like to learn more about the applications of the microflow LC-MS platform, please contact us.