Semi-quantitative and structural metabolic phenotyping by direct infusion ion trap mass spectrometry and its application in genetical metabolomics

The identification of quantitative trait loci (QTL) for plant metabolites requires the quantitation of these metabolites across a large range of progeny. We developed a rapid metabolic profiling method using both untargeted and targeted direct infusion tandem mass spectrometry (DIMSMS) with a linear ion trap mass spectrometer yielding sufficient precision and accuracy for the quantification of a large number of metabolites in a high-throughput environment. The untargeted DIMSMS method uses top-down data-dependent fragmentation yielding MS(2) and MS(3) spectra. We have developed software tools to assess the structural homogeneity of the MS(2) and MS(3) spectra hence their utility for phenotyping and genetical metabolomics. In addition we used a targeted DIMS(MS) method for rapid quantitation of specific compounds. This method was compared with targeted LC/MS/MS methods for these compounds. The DIMSMS methods showed sufficient precision and accuracy for QTL discovery. We phenotyped 200 individual Lolium perenne genotypes from a mapping population harvested in two consecutive years. Computational and statistical analyses identified 246 nominal m/z bins with sufficient precision and homogeneity for QTL discovery. Comparison of the data for specific metabolites obtained by DIMSMS with the results from targeted LC/MS/MS analysis showed that quantitation by this metabolic profiling method is reasonably accurate. Of the top 100 MS(1) bins, 22 ions gave one or more reproducible QTL across the 2 years.