Abstract
Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) is integral to temperate pastoral agriculture, which contributes most of the milk and meat production worldwide. Chemical profiles and diversity of ryegrass offer several opportunities to harness specific traits and elucidate underlying biological mechanisms for forage improvement. We conducted a large-scale metabolomics study of perennial ryegrass comprising 715 genotypes, representing 118 populations from 21 countries. Liquid/gas chromatography–mass spectrometry based targeted and non-targeted techniques were used to analyse fructan oligosaccharides, lipids, fatty acid methyl esters, polar and semi-polar compounds. Fructan diversity across all genotypes was evaluated, high- and low-sugar groups identified, and fructan accumulation mechanisms explored. Metabolites differentiating the two groups were characterised, modules and pathways they represent deduced, and finally, visualisation and interpretation provided in a biological context. We also demonstrate a workflow for large-scale metabolomics studies from raw data through to statistical and pathway analysis. Raw files and metadata are available at the MetaboLights database.
Highlights
Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) is integral to temperate pastoral agriculture, which contributes most of the milk and meat production worldwide
We hypothesised that chemical diversity of ryegrass, especially fructan content, offers opportunities to harness variation in these traits into cultivars for improved ruminant performance and novel product characteristics and, exploring underlying biochemical mechanisms of high-sugar grasses, in addition to a better mechanistic understanding of fructan accumulation, will help decipher major changes in primary and secondary metabolism
The objectives of the current study were to verify and demonstrate quality control measures undertaken for big metabolomics data, evaluate diversity of ryegrass genotypes for fructan/sugar content, and thereby identify high- and low-sugar plant genotypes under New Zealand climatic conditions, determine the role of degree of polymerisation (DP) of fructans in directing total sugar content, and elucidate potential metabolic variation between high- and lowsugar grasses in the context of data from other analytical streams
Summary
Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) is integral to temperate pastoral agriculture, which contributes most of the milk and meat production worldwide. We hypothesised that chemical diversity of ryegrass, especially fructan content, offers opportunities to harness variation in these traits into cultivars for improved ruminant performance and novel product characteristics and, exploring underlying biochemical mechanisms of high-sugar grasses, in addition to a better mechanistic understanding of fructan accumulation, will help decipher major changes in primary and secondary metabolism. The objectives of the current study were to verify and demonstrate quality control measures undertaken for big metabolomics data, evaluate diversity of ryegrass genotypes for fructan/sugar content, and thereby identify high- and low-sugar plant genotypes under New Zealand climatic conditions, determine the role of DP of fructans in directing total sugar content, and elucidate potential metabolic variation between high- and lowsugar grasses in the context of data from other analytical streams (lipids, FAMEs, polar and semi-polar compounds). Identification of compounds and mapping them to metabolic pathways, successfully led to visualisation of a biochemical snapshot of high-sugar grasses
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