Ultrahigh resolution metabolomics for S-containing metabolites

The advent of the genome-editing era greatly increases the opportunities for synthetic biology research that aims to enhance production of potentially useful bioactive metabolites in heterologous hosts. A wide variety of sulfur (S)-containing metabolites (S-metabolites) are known to possess bioactivities and health-promoting properties, but finding them and their chemical assignment using mass spectrometry-based metabolomics has been difficult. In this review, we highlight recent advances on the targeted metabolomic analysis of S metabolites (S-omics) in plants using ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry. The use of exact mass and signal intensity differences between S-32-containing monoisotopic ions and counterpart S-34 isotopic ions exploits an entirely new method to characterize S-metabolites. Finally, we discuss the availability of S-omics for synthetic biology.