The Metabolomics & Proteomics Platform (MAPP) is a service of the Department of Biology of the University of Fribourg. The mission of the platform is to provide expertise, instrumentation, and manpower to enable state-of-the-art implementation of metabolomic and proteomic analyses. To this end, the MAPP offers support in the planning and execution of experiments, including custom-tailored method development, sample preparation, data acquisition and analysis, and researcher training. Since its official start in January 2017, the MAPP has provided its services to many research groups of the Department of Biology as well as to some external customers. Notably, its activities have already contributed to several publications.

Metabolomics and Analytics Unit
The Metabolomics and Analytics Unit provides both analytical services and teaching in analytics to researchers that
prepare their samples under the supervision of the platform staff. Its mission is to assist the scientific community in implementing currently existing protocols as well as designing specific analytical methods related to their own research. This unit is currently equipped with two HPLCsystems coupled to a diode-array detector, a fluorescence detector and a fraction collector module, and two GC systems coupled to a flame-ionization detector and a single quadruple mass spectrometer. The Metabolomics and Analytics Unit is currently assisting ongoing research projects developed by nine research groups of the Department of Biology of the University of Fribourg as well as projects currently conducted at the University of Geneva, Bern and Lausanne, at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife research in Berlin, and at a private Swiss company. Research projects notably include the identification and quantification of compounds of interest such as fatty acids, neurotransmitters, bacterial volatiles, hormones
or psychotropic alkaloids, from animal samples (mice, Drosophila, bats), plant samples (Arabidopsis, maize, Australian endemic species and legal Cannabis) and from soil samples.

Proteomics Unit
The Proteomics Unit offers mass spectrometric (MS) analyses of protein samples as well as support for the expression and purification of proteins. Due to a successful R’Equip grant application, the Proteomics Unit is since April 2018 in the fortunate situation to have two high-end nanoLC-ESIMS/MS instruments, the newly purchased Q Exactive HF-X and a Q Exactive Plus (in use since 2016), at their disposition for MS analyses.

• In the last two years, twelve of the 27 research groups of the Department, as well as five external research groups, have utilized the services of the Proteomics Unit. For these customers, the unit has mainly provided the following services.
•  identification of interaction partners in immunoprecipitations either by determining the protein identity within gel bands or by on-bead digestion and label-free semi-quantitative mass spectrometry
•  identification of phosphorylation sites after in vitro kinase assays or at a proteome-wide level by deep phosphoproteome analyses
• semi-quantitative (LFQ) or quantitative (SILAC labelling) determination of changes in protein composition within cell or tissue extracts.

To overcome limitations of the metabolic SILAC labelling approach, the platform has established alternative state-of-the-art techniques for quantitative proteomics (i.e., dimethyl and TMT labelling). Besides these MS-analyses, it has also offered its support for the expression and purification of recombinant proteins to several research groups. Moreover, it has provided input for establishing an ‘in vivo’ kinase assay, relying on the co-expression of the kinase/substrate pair in bacteria.