Towards a platform for the metabonomic profiling of different strains of Drosophila melanogaster using liquid chromatography–Fourier transform mass spectrometry

Abstract

A platform based on hydrophilic interaction chromatography in combination with Fourier transform mass spectrometry was developed in order to carry out metabonomics of Drosophila melanogaster strains. The method was able to detect ∼ 230 metabolites, mainly in the positive ion mode, after checking to eliminate false positives caused by isotope peaks, adducts and fragment ions. Two wild‐type strains, Canton S and Oregon R, were studied, plus two mutant strains, Maroon Like and Chocolate. In order to observe the differential expression of metabolites, liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry analyses of the different strains were compared using sieve 1.2 software to extract metabolic differences. The output from sieve was searched against a metabolite database using an Excel‐based macro written in‐house. Metabolic differences were observed between the wild‐type strains, and also between both Chocolate and Maroon Like compared with Oregon R. It was established that a metabonomic approach could produce results leading to the generation of new hypotheses. In addition, the structure of a new class of lipid with a histidine head group, found in all of the strains of flies, but lower in Maroon Like, was elucidated.

The four aldehyde oxidases of Drosophila melanogaster have different gene expression patterns and enzyme substrate specificities

“…This suggests that the brownish eye color of the ry mutant arises from the progressive oxidation and degradation of eye pigments occurring in the absence of the antioxidant urate (Hilliker et al, 1992;Vorbach et al, 2003;Glantzounis et al, 2005). Metabolic profiling of the Drosophila ry and maroon-like (ma-l, suppressing Moco sulfuration and inactivating both XOR and AOXs) mutants confirmed the biochemical changes in xanthine, hypoxanthine and urate and revealed unsuspected changes in each of the tryptophan, arginine, pyrimidine and glycerophospholipid metabolic pathways (Kamleh et al, 2008;Kamleh et al, 2009).…”

Functional Correlates of Positional and Gender-Specific Renal Asymmetry in Drosophila

“…The samples were then analysed using ZICHILIC chromatography interfaced to an LTQ Orbitrap mass-spectrometry as described previously [20], [86]. Four independent samples were analysed for each tissue.…”

Metabolome Analysis of Drosophila melanogaster during Embryogenesis

“…Furthermore, metabolomics using Drosophila as model organism has been applied for the study of Listeria monocytogenes infection [17] and drug efficacy test [18]. In these studies, several techniques have been applied for metabolic profiling of Drosophila larvae or adults, such as Liquid Chromatography Fourier Transform Mass [19], [20], Liquid Chromatography-tandem Mass Spectrometry with Liquid Chromatography-Multiple Reaction Monitoring [21] or ion pairing Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry [22]. However, since all of these studies were carried out in Drosophila larvae or adults, up to now the information on the metabolic profiling of Drosophila during embryogenesis is still unclear.…”