Direct Mass Spectrometry-Based Approaches in Metabolomics

Abstract

Metabolomics is one of the newest omics technologies concerned with the identification and quantification of small molecules in a high-throughput manner. Considering the number of different types of metabolites present in a wide dynamic range of concentrations in any single living system, still actual analytical technologies can only capture a part of the metabolome.Currently MS-based approaches yield a higher sensitivity than NMR when analyzing minimal amounts of complex mixtures. Most MS-based approaches in metabolomics involve a physical/chemical purification/fractionation prior to MS analysis, to avoid sample matrix effects, at the expenses of low high-throughput performance. In the quest to achieve the maximum highthroughput production of metabolite information in the largest possible number of samples an extensive array of direct ionization or desorption/ionization techniques have been developed and combined. In the present Chapter an overview of the main desorption/ionization techniques coupled to MS applied to direct metabolite profiling or fingerprinting is presented.

Metabolomic strategies for aquaculture research: a primer

“…MS can be performed directly on samples without preseparation of metabolites (reviewed by Ibáñez et al . ). While direct MS techniques are rapid, they also suffer from low ionisation efficiencies and ion suppression.…”