American Chemical Society, Analytical Chemistry, 15(85), p. 7014-7018, 2013
DOI: 10.1021/ac401613x
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Microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi produce a variety of specialized metabolites that are invaluable for agriculture, biological research, and drug discovery. However, the screening of microbial metabolic output is usually a time intensive task. Here we utilize a liquid micro-junction surface sampling probe for electrospray ionization mass spectrometry to extract and ionize metabolite mixtures directly from living microbial colonies grown on soft nutrient agar in Petri-dishes without any sample pre-treatment. To demonstrate the method is robust, this technique was applied to observe the metabolic output of more than 30 microorganisms, including yeast, filamentous fungi, pathogens, and marine-derived bacteria, that were collected worldwide. Diverse natural products produced from different microbes, including Streptomyces coelicolor, Bacillus subtilis, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are further characterized.