A High-Throughput Targeted Metabolomics Workflow for the Detection of 200 Polar Metabolites in Central Carbon Metabolism

Targeted metabolomics aims to analyze a set of pre-selected metabolites from biologically relevant metabolic pathways. The triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (QqQ-MS) based multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) technique is the most widely approach used for targeted metabolomics, and features high selectivity and sensitivity, good reproducibility and wide dynamic range in quantitative analysis. Here, we describe an MRM based targeted metabolomics workflow for the quantitative analysis of 200 polar metabolites in central carbon metabolic pathways, including the data acquisition method and the automated data processing procedures using our in-house R package MRMAnalyzer. The workflow described in this chapter combines a hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) separation and positive/negative ion polarity switching based MS detection, and is able to acquire data from multiple types of biological samples such as bacteria, cultured mammalian cells, animal tissues and biofluids (e.g., serum and urine). Finally, the MRMAnalyzer software can automatically process the generated large-scale data set with high efficiency. We hope it is a valuable and efficient workflow for researchers to facilitate the respective biological studies using targeted metabolomics.