Abstract Detail

Phytochemical Section

Turi, Christina [1], Murch, Susan [2].

Metabolomics Analysis as a Tool to Understand Plant Growth and Development.

In response to their environment, plants produce a phytochemical arsenal in order to communicate and to withstand abiotic and biotic pressures. The average plant tissue contains upwards of 30,000 phytochemicals, consequently the vast majority of approaches used to study plant chemistry are reductionist, only targeting specific classes of compounds which can be easily isolated or detected. Metabolomics is the qualitative and quantitative analysis of all metabolites present in a biological sample. By providing researchers with a phytochemical snapshot of all existing metabolites present in a sample, metabolomics has allowed researchers to study plant primary and secondary metabolism in ways that were never done before. Metabolomics, as a field of study, is still in its infancy. Thus approaches to effectively mine datasets are still needed, and provide researchers with new ways to examine the fundamental processes which regulate the production of primary and secondary metabolites in vivo. In order to develop novel statistical and biochemical tools for investigating plant growth and development, a collection of in vitro-grown germplasm lines was established from wild-harvested seeds of Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) and subjected to metabolomic analysis. Up to 33,000 putative metabolites were identified using ultra performance reverse phase chromatography with time of flight mass spectrometry in A. tridentata leaf cultures. Hypothesis generation, Principal component analysis, synthetic biotransformation, significant ion generation, putative identification and logical algorithms were applied in order to develop hypotheses and research approaches for understanding plant growth and development in big Sagebrush. Given the importance of establishing in vitro model systems for phytochemical studies, mining of the metabolomics datasets provides a hypothesis-generating technique for future studies to optimize tissue culture protocols, so that model systems can better reflect the phytochemical diversity ex situ.

1 - University of British Columbia, Chemistry, 3247 University Way, Kelowna, British Columbia, V1V1V7, Canada
2 - University Of British Columbia Okanagan, 3333 University Way, Kelowna, BC, V1V 1V7, Canada

Keywords:
Metabolomics
plant growth
Artemisia
Development
hypothesis generating.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Sections
Session: 30
Location: Salon 13/The Shaw Conference Centre
Date: Wednesday, July 29th, 2015
Time: 9:00 AM
Number: 30005
Abstract ID:1087
Candidate for Awards:None