Development of metabolite profiling and metabolomics tools for Pseudomonas taiwanensis VLB120

Pseudomonas sp. VLB120 is a biofilm-forming Gram negative aerobic strain that isolated from soil at Institute of Microbiology, University of Stuttgart, Germany. The strain has an ability to survive and even able to grow in the presence of toxic solvents including octanol, toluene, and styrene. Furthermore, this strain utilizes a wide range of substrates including xylose which is the main component of hemicellulose that accounts for approximately 25 percent to 40 percent of lignocellulose. Therefore, it’s clear that the strain is an idea for the production of different pharmaceuticals, chemicals or biofuels from renewable lignocellulosic biomass.
However, this strain might not produce naturally the practical outcomes desired by humankind; they might require gene modification or new metabolic pathways for production of valuable products. Since these approaches are metabolically demanding, absolute quantification of intracellular metabolites are critical to understand the metabolism of the cell, as concentrations impact both the free energies and rates of metabolic reactions. However, analysis of intracellular metabolites is a challenging task due to their fast turnover rate and chemical diversity. Therefore, methods used for quenching metabolism and extracting the metabolites to investigate the in vivo metabolic state of a cell at a given specific conditions are crucial in metabolomics studies, as they significantly affect the number and intensity of metabolites detected.
In this study we are investigating the metabolic state of P.VLB120 strain and testing the suitability of commonly used metabolomics tools for this strain, as many of the tools were designed for specific classes of metabolites or microorganisms.