Reversed-phase liquid chromatographic determination of phytometallophores from Strategy II Fe-uptake species by 9-fluorenylmethyl chloroformate fluorescence

Determination of ferric iron chelators by high-performance liquid chromatography using luminol chemiluminescence detection

Iron is an essential element for higher plants, and its acquisition and transportation is one of the greatest limiting factors for plant growth because of its low solubility in normal soil pHs. Higher plants biosynthesize ferric iron [Fe(III)] chelator (FIC), which solubilizes the iron and transports it to the rhizosphere. A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) post-column method has been developed for the analysis of FICs using the luminol/H2O2 system for chemiluminescence (CL) detection. A size-exclusion column was the most suited in terms of column efficiency and CL detection efficiency. Mixing of the luminol with H2O2 in a post-column reaction was feasible, and a two-pump system was used to separately deliver the luminol and H2O2 solutions. The luminol and H2O2 concentrations were optimized using Fe(III)-EDTA and Fe(III)-citrate (Cit) solutions as analytes. A strong CL intensity was obtained for Fe(III)-Cit when EDTA was added to the luminol solution, probably because of an exchange of Cit with EDTA after separation on the HPLC column; CL efficiency was much higher for Fe(III)-EDTA than for Fe(III)-Cit with the luminol/H2O2 system. The present method can detect minute levels of Fe(III)-FICs; the detection limits of Fe(III)-EDTA, Fe(III)-Cit and Fe(III)-nicotianamine were 0.77, 2.3 and 1.1pmol, respectively.

High-performance liquid chromatography method for ferric iron chelators using a post-column reaction with Calcein Blue

Iron (Fe) is an essential element for higher plants, which take it up from the soil at the root surface and transport it to shoots through the xylem. Fe(III) chelators, such as organic acids and phytosiderophores, play important roles in the acquisition and transportation of Fe(III). Therefore, a selective and sensitive method for analyzing Fe(III) chelators is required to study the many Fe-related physiological mechanisms in plants. A novel analytical approach employing a high-performance liquid chromatography post-column method with fluorescence detection was developed to separate and detect Fe(III) chelators. This method takes advantage of the quenching of the fluorescence of Calcein Blue (CB) that occurs with the formation of an Fe(III)-CB complex and the dequenching that occurs with the release of CB as a result of competition for Fe(III) between CB and an Fe(III) chelator. This simple experimental method does not require complicated pretreatments and can selectively detect Fe(III) chelators according to their Fe(III)-chelating ability. The detection limit for citric acid using this method was 72pmol. Furthermore, this method can also detect unknown Fe(III) chelators that exhibit a high affinity for Fe(III). The method was evaluated with xylem sap of barley, which was shown to contain several Fe(III) chelators.

Speciation and identification of tellurium-containing metabolites in garlic, Allium sativum

Tellurium (Te) is a widely used metalloid in industry because of its unique chemical and physical properties. However, information about the biological and toxicological activities of Te in plants and animals is limited. Although Te is expected to be metabolized in organisms via the same pathway as sulfur and selenium (Se), no precise metabolic pathways are known in organisms, particularly in plants. To reveal the metabolic pathway of Te in plants, garlic, a well-known Se accumulator, was chosen as the model plant. Garlic was hydroponically cultivated and exposed to sodium tellurate, and Te-containing metabolites in the water extract of garlic leaves were identified using HPLC coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) or electrospray tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS-MS). At least three Te-containing metabolites were detected using HPLC-ICP-MS, and two of them were subjected to HPLC-ESI-MS-MS for identification. The MS spectra obtained by ESI-MS-MS indicated that the metabolite was Te-methyltellurocysteine oxide (MeTeCysO). Then, MeTeCysO was chemically synthesized and its chromatographic behavior matched with that of the Te-containing metabolite in garlic. The other was assigned as cysteine S-methyltellurosulfide. These results suggest that garlic can assimilate tellurate, an inorganic Te compound, and tellurate is transformed into a Te-containing amino acid, the so-called telluroamino acid. This is the first report addressing that telluroamino acid is de novo synthesized in a higher plant.

CE of phytosiderophores and related metal species in plants

Phytosiderophores (PS) and the closely related substance nicotianamine (NA) are key substances in metal uptake into graminaceous plants. Here, the CE separation of these substances and related metal species is demonstrated. In particular, the three PS 2'-deoxymugineic acid (DMA), mugineic acid (MA), and 3-epi-hydroxymugineic acid (epi-HMA), and NA, are separated using MES/Tris buffer at pH 7.3. Moreover, three Fe(III) species of the different PS are separated without any stability problems, which are often present in chromatographic analyses. Also divalent metal species of Cu, Ni, and Zn with the ligands DMA and NA are separated with the same method. By using a special, zwitterionic CE capillary, even the separation of two isomeric Fe(III) chelates with the ligand ethylenediamine-N,N'-bis(o-hydroxyphenyl)acetic acid (EDDHA) is possible (i.e., meso-Fe(III)-EDDHA and rac-Fe(III)-EDDHA), and for fast separations of NA and respective divalent and trivalent metal species, a polymer CE microchip with suppressed EOF is described. The proposed CE method is applicable to real plant samples, and enables to detect changes of metal species (Cu-DMA, Ni-NA), which are directly correlated to biological processes.

Challenges to metallomics and analytical chemistry solutions

Metal ions play a fundamental role in the chemistry of life. The understanding of the molecular bases of the living process requires the knowledge of the correlations existing between metal ions and the genome and the derived -omes: transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome. An indispensable step on this way is the characterization of the coordination environment of metal ions present and the identification and quantification of metal-containing chemical species. The ensemble of research activities related to metal ions in biological systems has been recently referred to as "metallomics" [1]. The progress in this field is largely dependent on the high-throughput acquisition of multielement and -species analytical data in biological samples. The paper gives a brief overview of the state of the art of analytical techniques and methods for the multielement quantitative analysis of biological microsamples, and for the detection, identification, and quantitation of metal-containing proteins and low-molecular-weight metabolites. The potential contribution of molecular biology techniques in terms of linking information on metals and metal-species to the genome of an organism is highlighted.

Separation and identification of phytosiderophores and their metal complexes in plants by zwitterionic hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

A sensitive method for the separation of different phytosiderophores (PS) of the mugineic acid (MA) family, and the candidate ligand for intracellular metal transport in plants nicotianamine (NA), and respective metal complexes in plants by zwitterionic hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (ZIC-HILIC) coupled to electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) is described. Separation of mugineic acid, 2'-deoxymugineic acid (DMA), 3-epi-hydroxymugineic acid (epi-HMA), nicotianamine, Fe(III)-DMA, Fe(III)-NA, M(II)-DMA, and M(II)-NA complexes (M(II)=Zn(II), Cu(II), Ni(II), and Fe(II)), was achieved within 22 min on the ZIC-HILIC column by using a gradient elution with a mobile phase consisting of ammonium acetate and acetonitrile at pH 7.3, at a flow rate of 0.15 mL/min. The on-line coupling to ESI-MS in the negative ionization mode enables the detection of these compounds in the micromol/L range, which is the relevant concentration range in real plant samples. DMA-complexes of Fe(III), Zn, and Cu in wheat root, and an NA-complex of Ni in Arabidopsis were detected and identified by the proposed method. Even in the case of partial coelution of some divalent metal complexes, the identification is possible by their distinct mass spectra. The stability of metal complexes during separation was checked by injecting ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) after each run of metal-phytosiderophore complexes. Good stability of divalent-phytosiderophores, except for Fe(II)-complexes, was observed. During gradient separation, Fe(III)-complexes are partly dissociated (<20%), but a good sensitivity of Fe(III)-DMA in real plant samples is still achieved. In order to avoid instability problems with the separation of Fe-complexes, an isocratic separation is proposed, which allows the separation of ferrous and ferric complexes in 2 min.

Mass spectrometry in bioinorganic analytical chemistry

A considerable momentum has recently been gained by in vitro and in vivo studies of interactions of trace elements in biomolecules due to advances in inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP MS) used as a detector in chromatography and capillary and planar electrophoresis. The multi-isotopic (including non-metals such as S, P, or Se) detection capability, high sensitivity, tolerance to matrix, and large linearity range regardless of the chemical environment of an analyte make ICP MS a valuable complementary technique to electrospray MS and MALDI MS. This review covers different facets of the recent progress in metal speciation in biochemistry, including probing in vitro interactions between metals and biomolecules, detection, determination, and structural characterization of heteroatom-containing molecules in biological tissues, and protein monitoring and quantification via a heteroelement (S, Se, or P) signal. The application areas include environmental chemistry, plant and animal biochemistry, nutrition, and medicine.

Analysis of iron(II)/iron(III) phytosiderophore complexes by nano-electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry

Nano-electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (nano-ESI-FTICRMS) was employed for the analysis of the phytosiderophore 2'-deoxymugineic acid (DMA) and the candidate ligand for the intracellular iron transport in plants nicotianamine (NA). Due to the zwitterionic nature of NA and DMA, complementary mass spectra were obtained in positive and negative ionization modes. The technique was also used for speciation of their complexes with Fe(II) and Fe(III), respectively. The species observed at pH 7.3 are the 1:1 Fe-ligand complexes and no evidence for the existence of dimeric complexes was observed. NA and DMA differ only by one mass unit. Consequently, in the system NA + DMA + Fe(II)/Fe(III), there are pairs of iron species (i.e. NA-Fe(II) and DMA-Fe(III)) with the same nominal mass, which differ only by approximately 0.02 mass units. It is shown that high-resolution MS accompanied by accurate mass data analysis allows the unequivocal identification of all four iron species (NA-Fe(II), NA-Fe(III), DMA-Fe(II), DMA-Fe(III)) in one solution without separation. We also addressed the possible alteration of the oxidation state of chelated iron under nano-ESI conditions, but no redox reactions were observed under optimized conditions.

Advances in analytical methodology for bioinorganic speciation analysis: metallomics, metalloproteomics and heteroatom-tagged proteomics and metabolomics

The recent developments in analytical techniques capable of providing information on the identity and quantity of heteroatom-containing biomolecules are critically discussed. Particular attention is paid to the emerging areas of bioinorganic analysis including: (i) a comprehensive analysis of the entirety of metal and metalloid species within a cell or tissue type (metallomics), (ii) the study of the part of the metallome involving the protein ligands (metalloproteomics), and (iii) the use of a heteroelement, naturally present in a protein or introduced in a tag added by means of derivatisation, for the spotting and quantification of proteins (heteroatom-tagged proteomics). Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP MS), used as detector in chromatography and electrophoresis, and supported by electrospray and MALDI MS, appears as the linchpin analytical technique for these emerging areas. This review focuses on the recent advances in ICP MS in biological speciation analysis including sensitive detection of non-metals, especially of sulfur and phosphorus, couplings to capillary and nanoflow HPLC and capillary electrophoresis, laser ablation ICP MS detection of proteins in gel electrophoresis, and isotope dilution quantification of biomolecules. The paper can be considered as a followup of a previous review by the author on a similar topic (J. Szpunar, Analyst, 2000, 125, 963).