PNNL

Abstract

Microorganisms release a diversity of organic compounds that couple interspecies metabolism, enable communication, or provide benefits to other microbes. Increased knowledge of microbial metabolite production will contribute to understanding of the dynamic microbial world and can potentially lead to new developments in drug discovery, biofuel production, and clinical research. Nanospray desorption electrospray ionization (nano-DESI) is an ambient ionization technique that enables detailed chemical characterization of molecules from a specific location on a surface without special sample pretreatment. Due to its ambient nature, living bacterial colonies growing on agar plates can be rapidly and non-destructively analyzed. We performed spatially resolved nano-DESI analysis of living Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 colonies on agar plates. We use high resolution mass spectrometry and MS/MS analysis of the living Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 colonies to detect metabolites and lipids, and confirm their identities. We found that despite the high salt content of the agar (osmolarity ca. 700 mM), nano-DESI analysis enables detailed characterization of metabolites produced by the colony. Using this technique, we identified several glycolipids found on the living colonies and examined the effect of the age of the colony on the chemical gradient of glucosylglycerol secreted onto agar.