Mass-spectrometry-based microbial metabolomics: recent developments and applications

Metabolomics is an omics technique aiming at qualitatively and quantitatively describing a metabolome by various analytical platforms. It is an indispensable component of modern systems biology. Microbial metabolomics can be roughly classified as metabolic footprint analysis and metabolic fingerprint analysis depending on the analyte origins. Both of them have been beneficial to microbiological research for different reasons. Mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy techniques are popular analytical strategies prevailing in the metabolomics field. In this review, chromatography-mass-spectrometry-based microbial metabolomic analysis steps are summarized, including sample collection, metabolite extraction, instrument analysis, and data analysis. Moreover, their applications in some representative fields are discussed as examples. The aim of this review is to present briefly recent technical advances in mass-spectrometry-based analysis, and to highlight the value of modern applications of microbial metabolomics.