Abstract
Metabolomics, which can be defined as the measurement of the level of all intracellular metabolites, has become a powerful new tool for gaining insight into functional biology. Intercellular metabolites not only provide metabolic phenotypes but also inducers to gene expression. Thus, metabolome analysis will be as important as genome and proteome research. However, very few methods for a large-scale metabolite analysis have been reported. This paper reports a method for the direct and quantitative analysis of charged metabolite using capillary electrophoresis electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (CE-ESI-MS). Its utility is demonstrated in the determination of basal metabolic intermediates of glycolysis and the TCA cycle pathways in Bacillus subtilis cells, yielding new information about how changes in metabolites are related to sporulation events.
