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HR-TOFMS for the metabolome
November 2012
EDIT CONNECT
SHARING OPTIONS:
ST. JOSEPH, Mich.—LECO Corp. has
entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy's
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the development of
metabolomic applications and tools. Berkeley
Lab's Life Sciences
division in late October took delivery of the LECO Citius LC-HRT to
use for applied research in metabolomics.
Unlike its competitors, which hail from
Europe as well as traditional high-tech corridors on the U.S. coasts,
LECO's "coast" is
Lakeview Avenue on Lake Michigan, where it
has produced technologically advanced products and solutions for more
than 75 years. Its current lineup
includes high-resolution
time-of-flight mass spectrometry (HR-TOFMS) for liquid and gas
chromatography, as well as comprehensive two-dimensional gas
chromatography, all of which use the company's ChromaTOF operating
software. Product lines also include high-quality analytical
instrumentation,
metallography and optical equipment and consumables.
LECO has more than 30 subsidiaries worldwide, with additional
distributors authorized to sell or
service LECO products to the rest
of the world.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
addresses some of the world
's most urgent scientific challenges by
advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health and creating
new materials. Founded in 1931, Berkeley
Lab's scientific expertise
has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of
California manages the lab for the Department of Energy's Office of
Science.
"Berkeley Lab was interested in our
technology, and we at LECO wanted to work with high-impact
metabolomics," says Dr. Jeff Patrick, director
of marketed
technology at LECO Separation Science.
Patrick will act as liaison to ensure
Berkeley's ongoing
access to LECO's R&D and analytical
technology. Designed for complex sample analysis, LECO's HRT
instrumentation provides acquisition speeds of
up to 200
spectra/second, mass resolution up to 100,000 FWHM and mass accuracy
less than 1 ppm—all specifications that are industry-leading,
Patrick
states.
"We introduced our high-resolution
system last year at Pittcon, and it received the Pittcon editors'
award for technology," he notes.
The metabolome represents the
collection of all metabolites in a biological cell, tissue, organ or
organism, which are the
end products of cellular processes, giving an
instantaneous snapshot of the physiology of that cell or system. One
of the challenges of systems biology
and functional genomics is to
integrate proteomic, transcriptomic and metabolomic information to
give a more complete picture of living organisms,
which is a goal of
the LECO-Berkeley partnership.
Dr. Trent Northen, a staff scientist
with
Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division and with the Joint
BioEnergy
Institute, will lead the research. Northen's research
aims to construct detailed models of cellular communities'
metabolism and energy through an
integrated program of metabolite
imaging and metabolomic analysis. This approach is being applied to
understand the dynamics of microbial communities,
as well as the
metabolic drivers of breast cancer.
"The dynamics of microbial
communities involve changes in
biochemistry and metabolites for
microbes, particularly where they are interspersed," Patrick says.
"It gives a picture of the interaction between
the microbe and its
environment, other microbes and other tissue. With breast cancer,
Berkeley will be looking at changes in metabolism in both the
whole
system and the local tissue that is affected. For LECO, this
collaboration is a wonderful opportunity to support the work of a
leader in
metabolomics, and to be part of the tradition of scientific
excellence at Berkeley Lab. We believe this partnership will
accelerate and facilitate the
addressing of both biological and
medical questions."
Patrick notes that the metabolic
products of food,
botanicals and herbal remedies are other areas of
current research. All he could add as results await publication is
that the work has "generated some
interesting metabolic shifts."
Code: E111220 Back |
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