Preparation of intracellular metabolite extracts from liquid Schizosaccharomyces pombe cultures

Abstract

The success of metabolomic analysis relies heavily on the sample preparation protocol. Here we present a protocol for intracellular metabolite extraction from liquid fission yeast cultures based on rapid quenching in pure methanol at −40°C, bead-beating in 50% methanol for cell disruption, and 10 kDa cutoff ultrafiltration for removal of proteins. Samples are concentrated by vacuum evaporation and resuspended in 50% acetonitrile for mass spectrometric analysis. This protocol is optimal for extraction of polar metabolites such as amino acids, organic acids, nucleotides, sugars, or sugar-phosphates. Its implementation requires <6 h and allows preparation of multiple samples in parallel.