RESEARCH ARTICLE Metabolomic Profiling of 13 Diatom Cultures and Their Adaptation to Nitrate-Limited Growth Conditions

Diatoms are very efficient in their use of available nutrients. Changes in nutrient availability influence the metabolism and the composition of the cell constituents. Since diatoms are valuable candidates to search for oil producing algae, measurements of diatom-produced compounds can be very useful for biotechnology. In order to explore the diversity of lipo-philic compounds produced by diatoms, we describe the results from an analysis of 13 dia-tom strains. With the help of a lipidomics platform, which combines an UPLC separation with a high resolution/high mass accuracy mass spectrometer, we were able to measure and annotate 142 lipid species. Out of these, 32 were present in all 13 cultures. The anno-tated lipid features belong to six classes of glycerolipids. The data obtained from the mea-surements were used to create lipidomic profiles. The metabolomic overview of analysed cultures is amended by the measurement of 96 polar compounds. To further increase the lipid diversity and gain insight into metabolomic adaptation to nitrogen limitation, diatoms were cultured in media with high and low concentrations of nitrate. The growth in nitrogen-deplete or nitrogen-replete conditions affects metabolite accumulation but has no majo