Leaf Spray: Direct Chemical Analysis of Plant Material by Mass Spectrometry
Eric Sorenson
Leaf Spray: Direct Chemical Analysis of Plant Material by Mass Spectrometry
Jiangjiang Liu,† He Wang,† R. Graham Cooks,*,‡,§ and Zheng Ouyang*,†,§
†Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, ‡Department of Chemistry, and §Center for Analytical Instrumentation Development,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
Analytical Chemistry
ACS Publications
Published September 14, 2011
This research article written by the researchers Jiangjiang Liu, He Wang, R. Graham Cooks, and Zheng Ouyang at Purdue University demonstrated that Leaf Spray is a superior method of mass spectrometry for the determination of the chemical constituents of plant tissue. I became interested in this research article while I was working on my own laboratory research that seemed to parallel many of the same work the Purdue researchers were performing, but of course with a higher degree of expertise and technological advantage. I found myself researching the molecular and chemical components of Arabidopsis thaliana, the plant model organism, used extensively in plant genetic and metabolism studies. Specifically I was interested in the glucosinolate content in the plant. Glucosinolates are a group of plant thiogluciosides found in all members of the plant family Brassicaceae. This group of secondary metabolites is indicative of cellular differentiation and knowing their concentration within A. thaliana spatially and temporally would provide a wealth of information for how the plant controls and maintains cellular differentiation specifically in the unicellular trichome structures. I found my research to be quite demanding and frustrating through the means by which I was detecting glucosinolates. I was detecting the glucosinolates via indirect analysis by first homogenizing the plant tissue and diluting the components and then treating the samples to either strong base or enzyme and sequentially analyzing the left over metabolites. So I wasn’t actually
Leaf Spray: Direct Chemical Analysis of Plant Material by Mass Spectrometry
Jiangjiang Liu,† He Wang,† R. Graham Cooks,*,‡,§ and Zheng Ouyang*,†,§
†Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, ‡Department of Chemistry, and §Center for Analytical Instrumentation Development,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, United States
Analytical Chemistry
ACS Publications
Published September 14, 2011
This research article written by the researchers Jiangjiang Liu, He Wang, R. Graham Cooks, and Zheng Ouyang at Purdue University demonstrated that Leaf Spray is a superior method of mass spectrometry for the determination of the chemical constituents of plant tissue. I became interested in this research article while I was working on my own laboratory research that seemed to parallel many of the same work the Purdue researchers were performing, but of course with a higher degree of expertise and technological advantage. I found myself researching the molecular and chemical components of Arabidopsis thaliana, the plant model organism, used extensively in plant genetic and metabolism studies. Specifically I was interested in the glucosinolate content in the plant. Glucosinolates are a group of plant thiogluciosides found in all members of the plant family Brassicaceae. This group of secondary metabolites is indicative of cellular differentiation and knowing their concentration within A. thaliana spatially and temporally would provide a wealth of information for how the plant controls and maintains cellular differentiation specifically in the unicellular trichome structures. I found my research to be quite demanding and frustrating through the means by which I was detecting glucosinolates. I was detecting the glucosinolates via indirect analysis by first homogenizing the plant tissue and diluting the components and then treating the samples to either strong base or enzyme and sequentially analyzing the left over metabolites. So I wasn’t actually