title: Reverse Iontophoretic Extraction of Metabolites from Living Plants and their Identification by Ion-chromatography Coupled to High Resolution Mass Spectrometry.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The identification and characterisation of cellular metabolites has now become an important strategy to obtain insight into functional plant biology. However, the extraction of metabolites for identification and analysis is challenging and, at the present time, usually requires destruction of the plant.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To detect different plant metabolites in living plants with no pre-treatment using the combination of iontophoresis and ion-chromatography with mass spectrometry detection.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this work, the simple and non-destructive method of reverse iontophoresis has been used to extract in situ multiple plant metabolites from intact Ocimum basilicum leaves. Subsequently, the analysis of these metabolites has been performed with ion chromatography coupled directly to high resolution mass spectrometric detection (IC-MS).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The application of reverse iontophoresis to living plant samples has avoided the need for complex pre-treatments. With this approach, no less than 24 compounds, including organic acids and sugars as well as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) were successfully detected.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The research demonstrates that it is feasible to monitor, therefore, a number of important plant metabolites using a simple, relatively fast and non-destructive approach. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QZ, UK.|Department of Physical Chemistry, Castilla-La Mancha University, 02071, Albacete, Spain.
authors.forename: Maria Isabel González
authors.initials: MIG
authors.lastname: Sánchez
authors.affiliation: Mass Spectrometry Research Facility CRL, Department of Chemistry, Oxford University, Mansfield Road, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McCullagh
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QZ, UK.|Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK.
authors.forename: Richard H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Guy
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford University, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QZ, UK.
authors.forename: Richard G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Compton
mesh_terms: D005591:Chemical Fractionation / Q000379:methods*; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods; D018649:Ocimum basilicum / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism
keywords: Ocimum basilicum; ion chromatography; mass spectrometry; plant metabolite identification; reverse iontophoresis