The IPB has once again been recognized for its exemplary actions in terms of equal opportunity-oriented personnel and organizational policies and has received the TOTAL E-QUALITY certification for the…
The Plant Science Student Conference (PSSC) has been organised by students from the two Leibniz institutes, IPK and IPB, every year for the last 20 years. In this interview, Christina Wäsch (IPK) and…
Böttcher, C.; Roepenack-Lahaye, E. v.; Willscher, E.; Scheel, D.; Clemens, S.;Evaluation of Matrix Effects in Metabolite Profiling Based on Capillary Liquid Chromatography Electrospray Ionization Quadrupole Time-of-Flight Mass SpectrometryAnal. Chem.791507-1513(2007)DOI: 10.1021/ac061037q
The coupling of liquid chromatography to electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry can be a powerful tool for metabolomics, i.e., the comprehensive detection of low molecular weight compounds in biological systems. There have, however, been doubts about the feasibility and reliability of this approach, because LC−MSespecially with electrospray ionizationcan be subject to matrix effects. We evaluated matrix effects for our metabolomics platform in three ways: (i) postextraction addition of a set of reference compounds to different complex biological matrixes to determine absolute and relative matrix effects, (ii) postcolumn infusion of two reference compounds, and (iii) mixing of two complex matrixes. Our data demonstrate that there are indeed significant absolute matrix effects when comparing highly divergent samples. However, relative matrix effects are negligibleunless extremely divergent matrixes are comparedand do not compromise the relative quantification that is aimed for in nontargeted metabolomics studies. In conclusion, employing LC-coupled ESI-QTOF-MS for metabolomics studies is feasible yet rigorous validation is necessary.