Ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry based non-targeted microbial metabolomics.

© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. All rights are reserved. Microbial metabolomes gain more and more attention due to the fact that microorganisms are ubiquitous and important in environment and health. Some are involved in basic environmental processes and govern element cycles in the entire ecosystem; others have relevance for animals and human (as commensal or pathogens) and have the potential to be used in biotechnology. The tools of Metabolomics have been used for many years in microbial research and the paradigm is changing from studies on single species cultures to multispecies communities, like in biofilms or environmental and human microbiomes. These changes lead to a new variety of metabolomic tools (metametabolomics) adapted to the study of multiple organisms systems. In addition the needs in high-resolution instrumentation are changing to analytical platforms that enable to deal with the yet unknown compounds. ICR-FT/MS is a promising ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry approach mastering the challenge in non-targeted metabolomics. This chapter presents an introduction to the current state of the art in microbial metabolomics, the importance of ICR-FT/MS in this field and is describing solutions for non-targeted metabolomics with a focus on bacterial samples

Dissolved organic matter in sea spray: a transfer study from marine surface water to aerosols

Atmospheric aerosols impose direct and indirect effects on the climate system, for example, by absorption of radiation in relation to cloud droplets size, on chemical and organic composition and cloud dynamics. The first step in the formation of Organic primary aerosols, i.e. the transfer of dissolved organic matter from the marine surface into the atmosphere, was studied. We present a molecular level description of this phenomenon using the high resolution analytical tools of Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). Our experiments confirm the chemoselective transfer of natural organic molecules, especially of aliphatic compounds from the surface water into the atmosphere via bubble bursting processes. Transfer from marine surface water to the atmosphere involves a chemical gradient governed by the physicochemical properties of the involved molecules when comparing elemental compositions and differentiating CHO, CHNO, CHOS and CHNOS bearing compounds. Typical chemical fingerprints of compounds enriched in the aerosol phase were CHO and CHOS molecular series, smaller molecules of higher aliphaticity and lower oxygen content, and typical surfactants. A non-targeted metabolomics analysis demonstrated that many of these molecules corresponded to homologous series of oxo-, hydroxy-, methoxy-, branched fatty acids and mono-, di- and tricarboxylic acids as well as monoterpenes and sugars. These surface active biomolecules were preferentially transferred from surface water into the atmosphere via bubble bursting processes to form a significant fraction of primary organic aerosols. This way of sea spray production leaves a selective biological signature of the surface water in the corresponding aerosol that may be transported into higher altitudes up to the lower atmosphere, thus contributing to the formation of secondary organic aerosol on a global scale or transported laterally with possible deposition in the context of global biogeocycling

Using ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry to unravel the chemical space of complex natural product mixtures.

Complex environmental and biological samples contain an enormous pool of abiotic and biotic low-molecular-weight natural products. The analysis of the entity of metabolites, in general referred to as metabolomics, is an important step toward the discovery of novel molecular structures in any type of organism as well as to improve the understanding of cellular regulation and adaption processes. Natural product analysis by means of metabolomics benefits from recent improvements in sampling and separation technologies such as solid-phase extraction (SPE), ultraperformance liquid chromatography (UPLC), and multidimensional chromatography, as well as from improved resolution and sensitivity in organic structural spectroscopy, namely infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and especially mass spectrometry. A combination of pathway mapping, statistical analysis, and mass defect filtering can be applied to focus on most important compounds or series of structurally related natural products

Passing Lanes: Safety and Performance

This report examines the impacts of passing lanes on safety, journey time and user experience and provides guidance to assist in the development of passing lane installation projects. The research found that passing lanes result in safety benefits, including perceived safety by motorists, safer operational conditions, and historical crash reductions. Passing lanes were also found to improve journey times through a small increase in travel speed and a significant reduction in percentage of time spent following a slower vehicle. This project included a literature review safety analysis, before-and-after analysis of crash records, speed and headway analysis, and overtaking behaviour analysis journey time analysis, including development of modelling guidance and numerical experiments on the impact of passing lanes on travel speed and per cent time spent following road user experience survey analysis, including an analysis of perceptions and valuation of level-of-service a review and re-calibration of the TRAffic on Rural Roads (TRARR) model.Ian Espada, Christopher Stokes, Peter Cairney, Long Truong, Paul Bennett and Michael Tzioti

Integrating analytical resolutions in non-targeted wine metabolomics.

Direct injection Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS), and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (UPLC/MS) were combined for the non-targeted analysis of wine metabolites. The unrivalled resolution on mass measurement allowed by the former and the separation ability of isomeric and isobaric substances by the latter, clearly increases the scope of detectable unknown metabolites in wines. Such methodology is illustrated through the comparison of chemical spaces of a young and an older Pinot noir wine. RP and HILIC chromatography could reveal up to five isomers for a given mass, throughout the explored mass range. CHO, CHOS and CHONS chemical spaces exhibited higher diversities in the older wine, illustrating a molecular oeno-diagenesis process during wine ageing, whereas nitrogen-containing compounds (CHON chemical space) appeared to be fewer in the older wine, likely due to precipitation. This methodological combination is a promising contribution to the wine metabolomics toolkit

Combined nontargeted analytical methodologies for the characterization of the chemical evolution of bottled wines.

Various non-targeted approaches have already shed light on the thousands of compounds that are present at various concentrations in grape and wine. Among them, direct injection Ion Cyclotron Resonance Fourier Transform Mass Spectrometry (FTICR-MS) undoubtedly provides the most comprehensive chemical fingerprints, based on unrivalled resolution on mass measurement, but limited to structural assumptions. Here, we show that the combination of FTICR-MS and Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-QTOF-MS), which increases the scope of detectable unknown metabolites and allows the separation between isomers, provides an unprecedented synoptic characterization of the chemical complexity of wines, where results obtained with one platform can directly be validated with data from the other. To that respect, wine ageing appears to be particularly interesting when related to the oeno-diagenesis processes that operate in bottle, and which depend on the actual initial composition of the wine. Applied to Pinot noir red wines from three different appellations in Burgundy, and over three vintages (1979, 1989, 1999), this approach revealed that the ageing chemistry is fundamentally driven by the metabolic baggage at bottling, characterized here by thousands of compounds from various chemical families including carbohydrates, amino acids, or polyphenols, but with a remarkably high distribution of nitrogen and sulfur-containing compounds

Is robotic radical nephroureterectomy a safe alternative to open approach: The first prospective analysis

Purpose: To test the efficacy and safety profile of robotic radical nephroureterectomy compared to the open approach. Methods: We enrolled 45 consecutive patients who suffered from non-metastatic, upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma from September 2019 to March 2021 and underwent radical nephroureterectomy. Patients were divided in two groups: Group A consisted of 29 patients (open approach) and group B consisted of 16 patients (robotic approach). The factors which were taken into consideration were age, sex, body mass index, tumour size, side and grade, cancer stage, ASA score, operation time, drain removal time, foley time, hospitalization time, estimated blood loss, surgical margins, preoperative and postoperative creatinine, Hct and bladder recurrences. Statistical analysis was performed with the use of SPSS version 26 and p < 0.05 was the cut-off for reaching statistical significance. Results: The mean age in group 1 was 67.12 years and in group 2 68.12 years, whereas the mean body mass index (BMI) in group 1 was 26.54 kg/m2 and in group 2 25.20 kg/m2. Operative time was better in group A (124 vs 186 mins p < 0.001) and estimated blood loss were better in group B compared to group A (137 vs 316 ml p < 0.001). Length of stay (LOS) was significantly less in the robotic group (5.75 vs 4.3 days p = 0.003) and the same applied for time required for drain removal (4.5 vs 3.3 days p = 0.006). Conclusions: Robotic radical nephroureterectomy is a safe and efficient alternative to open approach. It provides a favorable perioperative profile in patients suffering from upper urinary tract carcinoma without metastasis. © 2021 Edizioni Scripta Manent s.n.c.. All rights reserved