Volatile profiling and mVOCs database

The facility

Plants and microorganisms emit a wide range of chemically diverse volatile compounds. These volatiles mediate swift chemical interactions and communication in both aquatic and terrestrial environments, and carry out important ecological functions. Volatile compounds belong to a broad range of chemical classes such as alcohols, carbonyl compounds, hydrocarbons, aromatic, sulphur and nitrogen containing compounds, and show high structural variability. The analysis of microbial volatile organic compounds is an emerging research field that is important to agriculture, food, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.   

NIOO-KNAW uses high-resolution gas chromatography time-of-flight (GC-GC/QTOF-MS) from Agilent, which is the best known method so far for the analysis of a wide range of volatile to semi-volatile compounds.

References

• Weisskopf, L., Schulz, S., & Garbeva, P. (2021). Microbial volatile organic compounds in intra-kingdom and inter-kingdom interactions. Nature Reviews Microbiology. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-020-00508-1
• Tyc, O., Zweers, H., De Boer, W., & Garbeva, P. V. (2015). Volatiles in inter-specific bacterial interactions. Frontiers in Microbiology 6, 2015.01412. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2015.01412.
• Schulz-Bohm, K., Zweers, H., De Boer, W., & Garbeva, P. (2015). A fragrant neighborhood: Volatile mediated bacterial interactions in soil. Frontiers in Microbiology 6, 01212. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2015.01212.

Running period (guaranteed funding)

Undetermined 

Equipment / facilities

NIOO-KNAW uses high-resolution gas chromatography time-of-flight (GC-GC/QTOF-MS) from Agilent, which is the best known method so far for the analysis of a wide range of volatile to semi-volatile compounds.

NIOO-KNAW has developed different techniques and methods for trapping volatile compounds, using both passive and dynamic diffusion.  

NIOO-KNAW has developed a bioinformatics pipeline for deconvolution and analysis of big GC-MS datasets (including MassHunter, Workflow4metabolomics3, MZmine3 and Metaboanalyst). Detected volatiles are identified using AMDIS and NIST-MS search by comparing the spectra, accurate mass, linear retention indices and spectra match factors with the most recent NIST20, Wiley 9th and in-house NIOO spectral libraries (including mass spectra of plant and microbial volatile compounds). 

Data management

NIOO-KNAW datamanagement policy

Conditions for access

Conditions for access can be discussed on a case-to-case basis through the contact person for this facility.