微生物挥发性代谢产物(MVOCs)是微生物代谢产物的重要组成部分,是人类了解微生物生命活动本质规律的重要窗口,也是提高微生物利用价值的重要物质基础。MVOCs种类较多,按其化学结构不同可分为醇类、醛类、酸类、酯类和酮类等化合物。由于这些化合物的理化性质差异较大,在样品中含量低且浓度差异大,经常与大量的复杂基体共存,一般需要对其进行分离、富集后才能够进行分析测定。归纳了常见MVOCs的产生途径,综述了常规质谱分析方法在MVOCs分析检测中的应用,同时结合研究工作,介绍了新兴的复杂基体样品快速质谱分析技术的原理,评述了它们在MVOCs检测中的优势,并展望了质谱技术在MVOCs检测方面的发展趋势。
Microbial volatile organic compounds (MVOCs) are important components of metabolites produced by microorganisms, and serve as chemical windows through which the fundamental information about the molecular basis of microbial activities is released. Understanding of the MVOCs, as well as the insights of the molecular basis associated with the MVOCs, provides a real-world capability to control and utilize microorganisms better than ever. MVOCs can be classified into species such as alcohol, aldehyde, organic acid, ester and ketone etc. Traditionally, successful detection of MVOCs requires sample pre-treatment such as separation and enrichment, because of the diversity of MVOCs in terms of physical/chemical property, concentration and matrices present in practical samples. The process and mechanism of formation of MVOCs are briefly summarized ; recent progress made in applications of mass spectrometry for measurement of MVOCs are systematically reviewed, with emphases on the GC-MS and the comparison of different ionization techniques such as APCI, DESI, EESI, SDAPCI, SIFT and PTR. Clearly, novel ionization techniques such as EESI, SDAPCI and DESI requires no sample pretreatment, and provide rapid online analysis of MVOCs in real time. Prospectively, more advanced applications of these novel techniques based on mass spectrometry are anticipated.