Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced that it is outfitting the Agribio research centre for Agribioscience in Victoria, Australia, with mass-spectrometry (MS) technology.
A joint initiative of the Victorian Department of Primary Industries and La Trobe University in Melbourne, Agribio will use Thermo Scientific mass-spectrometry instrumentation to support Victoria's agricultural sector and address challenges such as climate change and drought.
The DPI's Biosciences Research Division already uses the Thermo Scientific LTQ mass spectrometer and has just installed two more Thermo Scientific LTQ Orbitrap Velos systems with Electron Transfer Dissociation (ETD).
The research facility also has a Thermo Scientific TSQ Vantage triple-stage quadrupole mass spectrometer with a Thermo Scientific Transcend system.
The systems will be used to further small-molecule metabolomics and proteomics research.
Metabolomics applications underpinning innovation for Victoria's dairy industry will enable molecular dissection of key metabolic pathways such as lignin, fructan and condensed tannin biosynthesis in forages.
Investigations of milk and rumen metabolomes of dairy cows will improve cow management for enhanced productivity and important environmental and health outcomes.
'The ability of the LTQ Orbitrap Velos to perform MSn and its accurate mass capability will be essential in determining the structure of the small-molecule metabolites we study,' said Dr Simone Rochfort, principal research scientist, DPI.
Proteomics applications include understanding quality traits in key animal and plant species.
Disease resistance, production efficiency and stress tolerance will be defined and then proteomic phenotypes for these traits will be measured across populations.
The LTQ Orbitrap Velos was chosen because of its superior mass accuracy and sensitivity, robust MSn capability and multiple fragmentation modes, including ETD.
ETD is a fragmentation technique that complements traditional collision-induced dissociation (CID) and is said to significantly increase sequence coverage and give added confidence to protein identifications.
'The ETD and collision cell options will enhance our ability to generate accurate protein sequence information to help move our proteomics work forward,' said Dr Matt McDonagh, leader, Discovery Technologies, DPI.
Agribio will use the TSQ Vantage with the Transcend system to speed quantitation of metabolites in complex sample matrices and validate putative proteomics biomarkers.
The Transcend system combines the power of automated online sample preparation with multiplexing to increase the efficiency of mass-spectrometry workflows.
