Metabolomics Facility

The V-lab laboratory is equipped with four state-of-the-art mass spectrometers that are dedicated to metabolomic/exposomic analyses.

These include:

1. an Agilent Technologies (Santa Clara, CA) 5977A gas chromatography-electron-impact (GC-EI)-MS (dedicated to ethanol/acetaldehyde assays and lipidomics) with capabilities of headspace and liquid injection.
2. An Acquity I Class (ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) system) interfaced with a Xevo® G2-XS-quadrupole-time-of-flight (UPLC-QToF)-MS system, Waters Corporation (Milford, MA), (dedicated to untargeted metabolomics for both small molecules and lipids) equipped with both electro spray ionization (ESI) and atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) sources.
3. An Acquity I Class UPLC system interfaced with
   • (i) a Waters Xevo® TQ-S micro triple quadrupole (MS/MS) system (dedicated to targeted metabolomics)
   • (ii) a 2475 fluorescence detector (FLR), for quantifying low concentrations of fluorescent molecules, and
   • (iii) a 2998 photodiode array (PDA) detector for advanced optical detection, trace impurity detection and quantitation in conjunction with spectral analysis capabilities.
4. A Waters Synapt-Si QToF-High Definition MS System (dedicated to imaging mass spectrometry) which has ion mobility functionality for improved metabolite resolution and identification, and it is interfaced with
   • (i) a desorption electrospray ionization (DESI) source and/or
   • (ii) a matrix-assisted laser desorption (MALDI) source.

For the tissue imaging mass spectrometry there is a Leica CM1950 cryostat for tissue sectioning (Leica Biosystems) and for matrix application there is an HTX M5 sprayer (HTX Technologies, LLC) and a sublimation apparatus that was built in-house.

These instruments allow the measurement of a wide range of metabolites in biological fluids, tissue extracts and whole tissue sections.

Dr. Vasiliou is the director of the NIAAA-funded R24-Resource Center for Mouse Models and Metabolomics Tools to Investigate Alcohol Metabolism and Tissue Injury and his metabolomics facility is available for collaborations with NIAAA-funded researchers.

View manufacturer's specs

with Headspace Sampler 7679A

and MassSpec 5977

Acquire and Analyze Mass Spectrometry Information

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