Abigail Moreno-Pedraza

Leibniz-Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops · Plant Biotic Interactions

This paper covers direct sub‐atmospheric pressure ionization mass spectrometry (MS). The discovery, applications, and mechanistic aspects of novel ionization processes for use in MS that are not based on the high‐energy input from voltage, laser, and/or high temperature but on sublimation/evaporation within a region linking a higher to lower pressu...

Julia combines the virtues of high-level and low-level programming languages: The code is human-readable, and the performance of the created binaries competes with machine-orientated compilers. Thus, Julia is popular in “Big Data” sciences. Reading mass spectrometry (MS) data with Julia was impossible until now due to missing libraries. Here, we pr...

The localization of metabolites in plant tissues is often related to their biological function and biosynthesis. Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) provides comprehensive information about the distribution of known and unknown compounds in tissues. In this protocol, we describe the use of laser desorption low-temperature plasma (LD-LTP) ionization MSI...

Ambient ionisation mass spectrometry (AIMS) enables studying biological systems in their native state and direct high-throughput analyses. The ionisation occurs in the physical conditions of the surrounding environment. Simple spray or plasma-based AIMS devices allow the desorption and ionisation of molecules from solid, liquid and gaseous samples....

Living organisms constantly interact with their environment, including through the exchange of gases. Respiration and the release and uptake of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) create dynamic microenvironments in biological systems. Studying the kinetics of volatiles in biological systems requires expensive instruments, and data analysis is challe...

Sublimation has been known at least since the middle ages. This process is frequently taught in schools through the use of phase diagrams. Astonishingly, such a well-known process appears to still harbor secrets. Under conditions in which compound sublimation occurs, gas-phase ions are frequently detected using mass spectrometry. This was exploited...

Thin-layer chromatography (TLC) is a classic method for the separation and analysis of complex mixtures. Biological assays, chemical derivatisation and spectroscopy techniques are compatible with TLC and provide extra information about isolated compounds. However, coupling TLC to mass spectrometry is hampered by the difficulty to desorb the analyte...

Building novel analytical systems requires various elements: Sensors, a sampling system and data evaluation software. For emerging technologies, such as ambient ionization mass spectrometry (AIMS), the assembly of a functional prototype is often more time-consuming than developing the actual probes. The modification of commercial platforms for test...

Mass spectrometry research laboratories reported multiple probes for ambient ionization in the last years. Combining them with a mechanical moving stage enables automated sampling and imaging applications. We developed a robotic platform, which is based on RepRap 3D-printer components, and therefore easy to reproduce and to adopt for custom prototy...

Background: different Solanaceae and Erythroxylaceae species produce tropane alkaloids. These alkaloids are the starting material in the production of different pharmaceuticals. The commercial demand for tropane alkaloids is covered by extracting them from cultivated plants. Datura stramonium is cultivated under greenhouse conditions as a source o...

The response to injury represents an important strategy for animals and plants to survive mechanical damage and predation. Plants respond to injury by activating a defense response that includes the production of an important variety of compounds that help them withstand predator attack and recover from mechanical injury (MI). Similarly, the filame...

Tequila and mezcal are Mexican spirits prepared from agave plants. The regulations for the designation 'tequila' are very strict with respect to used agave species, the geographical origin, and the manufacturing process. Therefore, admixtures with cheaper and less regulated mezcal spirits are frequent. These counterfeit tequila products represent a...

In coffee manufacture, analytical methods with high-throughput and cost efficacy are required for process development and quality control. Thus, we investigated the applicability of direct mass spectrometry methods to distinguish coffee products according to species, geographic origin and processing. We tested the performance of the established met...

Low-temperature plasma (LTP) ionization represents an emerging technology in ambient mass spectrometry (AIMS). LTP enables the solvent-free direct detection of a broad range of molecules and mass spectrometry imaging (MSI). The low energy consumption and modest technical requirements of these ion sources favors their employment in mobile applicatio...

Objective: To determine the effect of pH, and exposure time over the inactivation of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) during the tortilla making process as well as the degradative molecules generated. Materials and methods: Inactivation of AFB1 in maize-dough with alkaline pH and in alkaline methanolic solutions was determined by HPLC. Kinetics of time expos...