Home › Microbiology › Isolation of Mandibular Gland Reservoir Contents from Bornean 'Exploding Ants' (Formicidae) for Volatilome Analysis by GC-MS and MetaboliteDetector
Microbiology JoVE (Open Access) Citable · DOI

Isolation of Mandibular Gland Reservoir Contents from Bornean 'Exploding Ants' (Formicidae) for Volatilome Analysis by GC-MS and MetaboliteDetector

DOI: 10.3791/57652-v
What you'll learn
  • ✓ Dissect minor worker ants to isolate mandibular gland reservoirs
  • ✓ Solvent-extract volatile compounds from isolated gland contents
  • ✓ Analyze volatilome using GC-MS instrumentation
  • ✓ Annotate and identify compounds with MetaboliteDetector software
Protocol

Biopharma Insights Minor workers of the ant species Colobopsis explodens are dissected to isolate the wax-like content stored in their hypertrophied mandibular gland reservoirs for subsequent solvent-extraction and analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The annotation and identification of volatile constituents using the open-source software MetaboliteDetector is also described.

Difficulty
advanced
Total time
~4-6 hrs/sample batch plus overnight GC-MS run
Model organism
Colobopsis explodens (Bornean exploding ant)
Biosafety
BSL-1

Steps

1
Isolate mandibular gland reservoir contents by dissection

Dissect minor worker ants under a microscope to excise the hypertrophied mandibular gland reservoirs and Dufour's glands, collecting the wax-like reservoir content.

▶ 01:00
2
Solvent-extract gland contents and run GC-MS

Perform solvent extraction of the isolated gland contents and inject the extract into the GC-MS system for volatile compound separation and detection.

▶ 04:21
3
Annotate and identify compounds with MetaboliteDetector

Process GC-MS chromatograms using the open-source MetaboliteDetector software to annotate and identify the volatile constituents of the mandibular gland reservoir content.

▶ 08:22
4
Review findings and experimental conclusions

Summarize the identified compounds and discuss the significance of the mandibular gland reservoir volatilome in the context of the species' biology.

▶ 09:48
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