The importance of understanding microbe-plant interactions is becoming ever more important with the growing need for more sustainable agriculture and for understanding global nutrient cycling. Lab and field studies have historically focused on simple lab consortia or complex natural microbiomes. In these approaches, there exists numerous challenges, specifically in the […]
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An intriguing discussion on the use of metagenomics and metabolomics in development of sustainable fuels at Lawrence Berkeley Lab
Since the development of nanostructure-initiator mass spectrometry (NIMS), we have been working to find a way of producing these surfaces without the use of electrochemical HF etching, which poses both major safety implications and greatly limits the wide-spread implementation of NIMS. Here, we show that inductively coupled plasma (ICP) reactive […]
Here we highlight current high-throughput MS-based platforms and their potential application in metabolomics. Although current MS platforms can reach throughputs up to 0.5 seconds per sample, the metabolite coverage of these platforms are low compared to low-throughput, separation-based MS methods. High-throughput comes at a cost, as it’s a trade-off between sample throughput […]
Here we examine the exometabolite composition of desert biological soil crusts (biocrusts) and the substrate preferences of seven biocrust isolates. The biocrust’s main primary producer releases a diverse array of metabolites, and isolates of physically associated taxa use unique subsets of the complex metabolite pool. Individual isolates use only 13−26% […]
Here we review exometabolomics approaches and applications to show how this simple technique can provide critical insights into phenotypes, cellular interactions and environmental transformations. We highlight how this approach can be used in rapid phenotyping assays that are becoming popular in drug development, synthetic biology, biofuel development, and investigating the […]
In this article we describe the development of a simple soil metabolomics workflow and a novel spike recovery approach for the analysis of soil organic matter (SOM). The cycling of SOM by microorganisms is a critical component of the global carbon cycle but remains poorly understood. There is an emerging […]
The role that pharmaceutical antibiotics play within the producing organism has remained a largely unexplored field as the research focus has mainly revolved around high production for therapeutic use. Evidence exists to suggest that, at low levels, these “antibiotics” may actually act as signaling or regulatory molecules within or between cells. Julian Davies, a […]
Understanding microbial metabolite cycling in soils using novel metabolomics approaches Trent Northen, Staff Scientist Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Berkeley, CA To improve agricultural processes and combat the effects of desertification and drought, we urgently need to improve our understanding of terrestrial nutrient cycling in soils. We have major investments in […]