Here, we present a robust protocol to quantify 40 compounds involved in central carbon and energy metabolism in cell-free protein synthesis reactions. The cell-free synthesis mixture is derivatized with aniline for effective separation using reversed-phase liquid chromatography and then quantified by mass spectrometry using isotopically labelled internal standards.
Vilkhovoy, M., Dai, D., Vadhin, S., Adhikari, A., Varner, J. D. Absolute Quantification of Cell-Free Protein Synthesis Metabolism by Reversed-Phase Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry. J. Vis. Exp. (152), e60329, doi:10.3791/60329 (2019).