In the field of metabolomics, researchers seek to acquire almost
complete information about the metabolic composition of a sample to
provide fundamental information about the cellular state of organisms.
In metabolomics analysis today, typically reversed-phase (RP) liquid
chromatography (LC) is coupled with specific, sensitive, and robust mass
spectrometry (MS). That approach, however, misses many moderately
polar, and all very polar, compounds; this situation is a problem in
plant metabolomics, because plant metabolites are mainly water-soluble
species and thus very polar. Here, we describe new developments in
polarity-extended separations using the serial coupling of
reversed-phase LC and hydrophilic-interaction chromatography (HILIC)
separation steps, in combination with electrospray
ionization-time-of-flight-mass spectrometry (ESI-TOF-MS), and the
application of this approach to plant metabolomics. The resulting
retention time versus mass plots are molecular fingerprints, as well as
sources of further molecular descriptors. Extraction methods, molecular
analysis, and data evaluation have to be adapted to the matrix under
consideration. Representative strategies using this polarity extending
approach, following so-called suspects and nontargeted screening approaches, are presented.