SECIM is partnering with IROA Technologies to develop and offer Isotopic Ratio Outlier Analysis (IROA) to users. In IROA, control and experimental samples are isotopically labeled with 95% and 5% 13C, and the two sample populations are mixed together for uniform extraction, sample preparation, and LC-MS analysis.
This labeling strategy provides several advantages over conventional approaches:
- Compounds arising from biosynthesis are easily distinguished from artifacts,
- Errors from sample extraction and preparation are minimized because the control and experiment are combined into a single sample,
- Measurement of both the molecular weight and the exact number of carbon atoms in each molecule provides extremely accurate molecular formulae, and
- Relative concentrations of all metabolites are easily determined.
IROA will be offered through SECIM Core 3.