Analysis of Subcellular Metabolite Distributions Within Arabidopsis thaliana Leaf Tissue: A Primer for Subcellular Metabolomics

Every biological organism relies for its proper function on interactions between a multitude of molecular entities like RNA, proteins, and metabolites. The comprehensive measurement and the analysis of all these entities would therefore provide the basis for our functional and mechanistic understanding of most biological processes. Next to their amount and identity, it is most crucial to also gain information about the subcellular distribution and the flux of the measured compounds between the cellular compartments. That is, we want to understand not only the individual functions of cellular components but also their functional implications within the whole organism. While the analysis of macromolecules like DNA, RNA, and proteins is quite established and robust, analytical techniques for small metabolites, which are prone to diffusion and degradation processes, provide a host of unsolved challenges. The major limitations here are the metabolite conversion and relocation processes. In this protocol we describe a methodological workflow which includes a nonaqueous fractionation method, a fractionated two-phase liquid/liquid extraction protocol, and a software package, which together allow extracting and analyzing starch, proteins, and especially polar and lipophilic metabolites from a single sample towards the estimation of their subcellular distributions.