Microbial metabolomics in open microscale platforms.

ABSTRACT: The microbial secondary metabolome encompasses great synthetic diversity, empowering microbes to tune their chemical responses to changing microenvironments. Traditional metabolomics methods are ill-equipped to probe a wide variety of environments or environmental dynamics. Here we introduce a class of microscale culture platforms to analyse chemical diversity of fungal and bacterial secondary metabolomes. By leveraging stable biphasic interfaces to integrate microculture with small molecule isolation via liquid-liquid extraction, we enable metabolomics-scale analysis using mass spectrometry. This platform facilitates exploration of culture microenvironments (including rare media typically inaccessible using established methods), unusual organic solvents for metabolite isolation and microb

SUBMITTER: Barkal LJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4742997 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature