Journal
ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Volume 91, Issue 23, Pages 14818-14823Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b03909
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Funding
- PAPM-EAGER Grant from the National Science Foundation [1650059]
- University of California, Berkeley
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1650059] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Integrative Organismal Systems [1650059] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Microbes interact with the world around them at the chemical level. However, directly examining the chemical exchange between microbes and microbes and their environment, at ecological scales, i.e., the scale of a single bacterial cell or small groups of cells, remains a key challenge. Here we address this obstacle by presenting a methodology that enables matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) of bacterial microcolonies. By combining optimized sample preparation with subatmospheric pressure MALDI, we demonstrate that chemical output from groups of as few as 50 cells can be visualized with MALDI-IMS. Application of this methodology to Bacillus subtilis and Streptomyces coelicolor revealed heterogeneity in chemical output across microcolonies and asymmetrical metabolite production when cells grew within physiological gradients produced by Medicago sativa roots. Taken together, these results indicate that MALDI-IMS can readily visualize metabolites made by very small assemblages of bacterial cells and that even these small groups of cells can differentially produce metabolites in response to local chemical gradients.
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