Dr. Daniel Petras
Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside, Biochemistry
Lab Website

Decomplexing Marine Dissolved Organic Matter with Functional Metabolomics

Tuesday, February 4
11:30 AM
AHF 153 (Torrey Webb Room)

Abstract: The chemical composition of the ocean’s dissolved organic matter pool represents a fascinating source of chemical entities that are fundamentally important for ecosystem function and planetary processes. Recent advancements in tandem mass spectrometry and computational analytics have enabled the identification of a broad spectrum of metabolites from this complex mixture, allowing for the inference of their activities based on existing literature. Yet, the metabolites and activities currently known represent only a fraction of the detectable compounds in these environments. To fully map out the structural and bioactivity space, new methods are needed, as traditional isolation and bioactivity studies do not scale to contemporary non-targeted metabolomics workflows. To address this need, we have developed functional metabolomics tools that integrate multidimensional liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry with bioactivity profiling as well as native mass spectrometry. In combination with molecular networking, these workflows allow us to screen complex environmental samples for bioactivity, metal and protein binding, and metabolic transformations. Our results provide new insights into the enormous chemical complexity and functionality within marine ecosystems, underscoring the utility of functional metabolomics in bridging environmental metabolomics data with bioactivity. We hope that our approaches will contribute to advancing the systematic exploration of small molecules’ roles and dynamics in complex environmental systems.