Systematic identification of trimethoprim metabolites in lettuce.

Antibiotics are some of the most widely used drugs. Their release in the environment is of great concern since their consumption is a major factor for antibiotic resistance, one of the most important threats to human health. Their occurrence and fate in agricultural systems have been extensively investigated in recent years.

Elucidating biotransformation pathways of ofloxacin in lettuce (Lactuca sativa L).

Antibiotics can be uptaken by plants from soil desorption or directly from irrigation water, but their metabolization pathways in plants are largely unknown. In this paper, an analytical workflow based on high-resolution mass spectrometry was applied for the systematic identification of biotransformation products of ofloxacin in lettuce. The targeted metabolites were selected by comparing the mass chromatograms of exposed with control samples using an advanced spectra-processing method (Fragment Ion Search).

Development of a sensitive untargeted liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry screening devoted to hair analysis through a shared MS2 spectra database: A step toward early detection of new psychoactive substances.

Untargeted liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) techniques have become indispensable tools for systematic toxicological analysis. They allow the research of an almost unlimited number of drugs within a single analytical cycle, but shared mass spectra libraries are still missing to identify newly marketed compounds, along with defined analytical procedures. This article describes the optimization, validation, and application of an untargeted screening method devoted to hair analysis using data-dependent analysis (DDA) and a shared HRMS database.

Applications of Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance (FT-ICR) and Orbitrap Based High Resolution Mass Spectrometry in Metabolomics and Lipidomics.

Metabolomics, along with other "omics" approaches, is rapidly becoming one of the major approaches aimed at understanding the organization and dynamics of metabolic networks. Mass spectrometry is often a technique of choice for metabolomics studies due to its high sensitivity, reproducibility and wide dynamic range. High resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) is a widely practiced technique in analytical and bioanalytical sciences.

The Time Is Right to Focus on Model Organism Metabolomes.

Model organisms are an essential component of biological and biomedical research that can be used to study specific biological processes. These organisms are in part selected for facile experimental study. However, just as importantly, intensive study of a small number of model organisms yields important synergies as discoveries in one area of science for a given organism shed light on biological processes in other areas, even for other organisms.

HAMMER: automated operation of mass frontier to construct in silico mass spectral fragmentation libraries.

Summary: Experimental MS(n) mass spectral libraries currently do not adequately cover chemical space. This limits the robust annotation of metabolites in metabolomics studies of complex biological samples. In silico fragmentation libraries would improve the identification of compounds from experimental multistage fragmentation data when experimental reference data are unavailable.

Fragmentation trees for the structural characterisation of metabolites.

Metabolite identification plays a crucial role in the interpretation of metabolomics research results. Due to its sensitivity and widespread implementation, a favourite analytical method used in metabolomics is electrospray mass spectrometry. In this paper, we demonstrate our results in attempting to incorporate the potentials of multistage mass spectrometry into the metabolite identification routine.

Determination of ion structures in structurally related compounds using precursor ion fingerprinting.

Structurally-related alkaloids were analyzed by electrospray ionization/multiple stage mass spectrometry (ESI/MS(n)) at varying collision energies to demonstrate a conceptual algorithm, precursor ion fingerprinting (PIF). PIF is a new approach for interpreting and library-searching ESI mass spectra predicated on the precursor ions of structurally-related compounds and their matching product ion spectra. Multiple-stage mass spectra were compiled and constructed into "spectral trees" that illustrated the compounds' product ion spectra in their respective mass spectral stages.

Comparison of CID spectra of singly charged polypeptide antibiotic precursor ions obtained by positive-ion vacuum MALDI IT/RTOF and TOF/RTOF, AP-MALDI-IT and ESI-IT mass spectrometry.

Various classes of polypeptide antibiotics, including blocked linear peptides (gramicidin D), side-chain-cyclized peptides (bacitracin, viomycin, capreomycin), side-chain-cyclized depsipeptides (virginiamycin S), real cyclic peptides (tyrocidin, gramcidin S) and side-chain-cyclized lipopeptides (polymyxin B and E, amfomycin), were investigated by low-energy collision induced dissociation (LE-CID) as well as high-energy CID (HE-CID). Ion trap (IT) based instruments with different desorption/ionization techniques such as electrospray ionization (ESI), atmospheric pressure matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (AP-MALDI) and vacuum MALDI (vMALDI) as well as a vMALDI-time-of-flight (TOF)/curved field-reflectron instrument fitted with a gas collision cell were used. For optimum comparability of data from different IT instruments, the CID conditions were standardized and only singly charged precursor ions were considered.

A butterfly's chemical key to various ant forts: intersection-odour or aggregate-odour multi-host mimicry?

Deception is a crucial yet incompletely understood strategy of social parasites. In central Europe, the Mountain Alcon Blue, Maculinea rebeli, a highly endangered butterfly, parasitises several Myrmica ant species. Caterpillars gain access to host nests probably by faking the ants' odour.

Electron ionization mass spectrometric study of monomeric models of O-polysaccharides of Vibrio cholerae O:1, serotypes Ogawa and Inaba.

Fragmentation mechanisms of electron ionization (EI) mass spectrometry of the title compounds have been elucidated by high-resolution (HR) mass spectrometric measurements of the elemental composition and measurements of the metastable transitions (B(2)/E, CID). The experimental results were interpreted with the help of Mass Frontier 3.0 software, which aided the elucidation of fragmentation mechanisms and helped to deduce structures of the ions formed.

Cuticular hydrocarbons of Tetramorium ants from central Europe: analysis of GC-MS data with self-organizing maps (SOM) and implications for systematics.

Cuticular hydrocarbons were extracted from workers of 63 different nests of five species of Tetramorium ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Austria, Hungary, and Spain. The GC-MS data were classified (data mining) by self-organizing maps (SOM). SOM neurons derived from primary neuron separation were subjected to hierarchical SOM (HSOM) and were grouped to neuron areas on the basis of vicinity in the hexagonal output grid.