Deuterium-exchange metabolomics identifies N-methyl lyso phosphatidylethanolamines as abundant lipids in acidophilic mixed microbial communities

Natural microbial communities are extremely diverse and contain uncharacterized but functionally important small molecules. By coupling a deuterium (D) labeling technique to high mass accuracy untargeted liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spec- trometry (LC–ESI–MS) metabolomic analysis, we found that natural acidophilic microbial biofilms dominated by bacteria of the genus Leptospirillum contained unusual lyso phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) lipids in high abundance (more than 10 nmol/mg of dry biomass). The unusual polar head group structure of these lipids is similar to lipids found in phylogenetically unrelated acidophilic chemo- autolithotrophs and may be related to the affinity of these lipids for iron and calcium ions. Correlations of lyso phospholipid and proteome abundance patterns suggest a link between the lyso phospholipids and the UBA-type substrain of Leptospirillum group II. By combining untar- geted metabolomics with D exchange we demonstrate the ability to identify cryptic but biologically functional small molecules in mixed microbial communities.