Development of a comprehensive analytical method for phosphate metabolites in plants by ion chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry

This paper describes the development of a practical method for the analysis of phosphorus compounds with a focus on sugar phosphates from the model higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana by ion chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (IC–ESI-MS–MS). After the analytical separation, the potassium hydroxide eluent was converted to water with an anion suppressor allowing the effluent from the IC to be connected to the mass spectrometer directly. In the optimized method, 17 phosphorous compounds (adenosine diphosphate (ADP), fructose 1,6-bisphosphate, fructose 2,6-bisphosphate, fructose 6-phosphate, galactose 1-phosphate, glucose 1-phosphate, glucose 1,6-bisphosphate, glucose 6-phosphate, mannose 6-phosphate, phosphoenol pyrvate, 3-phosphoglyceric acid, ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate, ribulose 5-phosphate, ribose 5-phosphate, sucrose 6-phosophate and uridine 5′-diphosphate-glucose (UDPG)) were determined. The linearity of response for these phosphorous compounds over the concentration range of 0 and 10 μM was better than 0.9993 in all cases. The minimum detection limit was between 0.01 and 2.50 μM for a 25 μL injection, and recovery rates for standard addition to the sample were within the range from 93% to 110%.