Liquid chromatograph coupled to a mass spectrometer

• Subject Area: Plant Sciences
• Term: Funded in 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 565214193

The main research topic of the Ischebeck lab are plant lipid droplets - subcellular structures that are surrounded by a phospholipid monolayer and contain hydrophobic compounds. Studying the role of lipid droplets in metabolism (especially lipid metabolism), and the biochemical analysis of lipid droplet-associated enzymes of unknown function requires sensitive analytical tools. In particular, the deep analysis of oxidized lipids is challenging and not well established in the plant lipid field but required for several projects. Furthermore, biotechnological ap-proaches to turn lipid droplets into factories and storage depots for specialized metabolites demands for the precise measurement of precursors and products. Outside the Ischebeck lab, within the Department of Biology of the University of Münster and beyond, many projects need lipid analyses ranging from Arabidopsis seeds to rubber particles, algal and bacterial metabolism, mouse brains and cave fish. The Ischebeck lab has a strong track record of collaborative projects, where it provided mass spectrometry-based metabolite analytics to groups of the plant, microbiology and neuroscience field. To unlock the full potential of all these projects, the Ischebeck lab requires a liquid chromato-graph coupled to a mass spectrometer (LC-MS) that is reliably able to identify and quantify small molecules, especially lipids from highly complex mixtures in a high sample size. Right now, the group has no possibility to perform these measurements within the Faculty of Biology. The LC-MS would enable high-throughput quantitative lipid and metabolite analysis. The additional fragmentation possibilities (higher-energy collisional dissociation or electron activated dissociation), that surpass most machines that are commonly used in plant lipid analysis, can identify the positions of the acyl chains in a glycerol backbone and of double bonds within the acyl chains. They would furthermore enable the structural elucidation of unknown compounds found in metabolite analyses. In conclusion, the instrument would provide highly sensitive and quantitative measurements of a large variety of compounds, strongly increasing the research possibilities of the lab and the entire Faculty of Biology. It would also lay the basis for additional collaborations outside the University of Münster by expanding the current possibilities by additional classes of metabolites including lipids.

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Flüssigchromatograph gekoppelt an ein Massenspektrometer
• Instrumentation Group: 1700 Massenspektrometer
• Applicant Institution: Universität Münster
• Leader: Professor Dr. Till Ischebeck