Abstract
Metabolomics aims at determining a sample's metabolites profile and hence provides a straight functional statement of an organism's physiological condition. Here, we investigated comprehensive profiling, natural variation and species-specific accumulation of both primary and secondary metabolites in foxtail millet using LC-MS, and inheritance patterns of metabolome in millet hybrids. The application of a broad target metabolomics method facilitated the simultaneous identification and quantification of more than 300 metabolites. The metabolic analysis of these compounds, such as flavonoids, phenolamides, hydrocinnamoyl derivatives, vitamins and LPCs, revealed their developmentally controlled accumulation, and natural variation in different tissues/varieties. Species-specific accumulation of secondary metabolites was observed based on a comparative metabolic analysis between millet and rice, such as flavonoid O-rutinosides/neohesperidosides and malonylated flavonoid O-glycosides. In analyzing the metabolic variations between hybrid progenies and their parental lines, including a photothermo-sensitive genic male sterility line and five Zhangzagu varieties, metabolic overdominant, and dominant patterns of inheritance could be observed. For example, hydrocinnamoyl derivatives and feruloylated flavonoids were identified as over-parent heterosis (overdominant) metabolites in milet hybrids. Our work paves the way for developing predictors of hybrid performance and the future analysis of the biosynthesis and regulation of relevant metabolic pathways in millet.
Highlights
Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) is one of the oldest cultivated millet crops (Murugan and Nirmalakumari, 2006; Bidinger et al, 2007)
Based on the fragmentation pattern, the retention time (RT) and the mass-to-charge-ratio (m/z) values of each metabolite, 63 were putatively identified with that of the commercial standards, and 251 metabolites were annotated in cases when no authentic standards were available (Supplementary Tables S1, S2), which was performed as previously described (Chen et al, 2013; Dong et al, 2014)
We putatively identified a number of secondary metabolites, including 107 flavonoids, 18 hydrocinnamoyl derivatives, 17 phenolamides and 16 vitamin related compounds
Summary
Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) is one of the oldest cultivated millet crops (Murugan and Nirmalakumari, 2006; Bidinger et al, 2007). Metabolic Profiling of Foxtail Millet amino acids, carbohydrates, and vitamins (Lorenz and Hinze, 2002; Taira, 2002; Yang et al, 2013). Plant primary and secondary metabolites play vital roles in determining plant growth and development, pigmentation for fruits and flowers, plant interactions with microbes and animals, and plant defenses against abiotic stresses, etc. Primary metabolites mainly include amino acids, nucleotides, fatty acids, carbohydrates and organic acids, while secondary metabolites include phenolic acids, flavonoids, polyamines, alkaloids, phytohormones and vitamins (D’Auria and Gershenzon, 2005; Schauer et al, 2008). Metabolic profiling in millet has only been reported in 4 months-old seedlings using gaschromatography coupled with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOF MS) to determine the diversity among 43 primary metabolites and five phenolic acids in three varieties (Jaekwang et al, 2013). The application of the stepwise MIM-EPI method in millet based on LC-MS will allow for a comprehensive analysis of millet-specific metabolome
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