Effects of heat-treatment on the stability and composition of metabolomic extracts from the earthworm Eisenia fetida

Environmental metabolomics studies employing earthworms as sentinels for soil contamination are numerous, but the instability of the metabolite extracts from these organisms has been minimally addressed. This study evaluated the efficacy of adding a heat-treatment step in two commonly used extraction protocols (Bligh and Dyer and D(2)O phosphate buffer) as a pre-analytical stabilization method. The resulting metabolic profiles of Eisenia fetida were assessed using principal component analysis and NMR spectral evaluations. The heated Bligh and Dyer extractions produced stabilized profiles with minimal variation of the extracted metabolomic profiles over time, providing a more suitable method for metabolomic analysis of earthworm extracts. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11306-016-0967-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.