How would bio-production look if volatile bio-products of fermentation could be detected in real-time (within seconds) and without sample preparation?
Monitoring the metabolism of a bioreactor is key to optimizing bioproduction. For this, the response time is critical.
Hendrik Mengers, Martin Zimmermann & Lars M. Blank from Aachen University monitored the volatilome of yeast during growth in a shake flasks bioreactor. Among many more metabolites, they caught the evolution of acetaldehyde and ethanol within seconds (five hours earlier than when analyzed with HPLC or GC), proving a high correlation between concentrations in the gas phase and the liquid. And they were able to track microbial physiology and its metabolic transitions.
Now it is all possible with SUPER SESI-Orbitrap MS!
Check the original paper here