title: Practical non-targeted gas chromatography/mass spectrometry-based metabolomics platform for metabolic phenotype analysis.
abstract: Gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS) is a core analytical method for metabolomics and has been used as a platform in non-targeted analysis, especially for hydrophilic metabolites. Non-targeted GC/MS-based metabolomics generally requires a high-throughput technology to handle a large volume of samples and an accumulated database (reference library) of the retention times and mass spectra of standard compounds for accurate peak identification. In this study, we provide a practical GC/MS platform and an auto peak identification technique that is not restricted to certain types of mass spectrometers. The platform utilizes a quadrupole mass spectrometer capable of high-speed scanning, resulting in greater output compared with Pegasus GC-time of flight (TOF)/MS, which has been an essential instrument for high-throughput experiments. Moreover, we show that our reference library is broadly applicable to other instruments; peak identification can be readily performed using the library without constructing a reference resource. The usefulness and versatility of our system are demonstrated by the analyses of three experimental metabolomics data sets, including standard mixtures and real biological samples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tsugawa
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bamba
authors.forename: Masakazu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shinohara
authors.forename: Shin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nishiumi
authors.forename: Masaru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.forename: Eiichiro
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fukusaki
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001774:Blood Chemical Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice