Cross-Species Comparison of Fruit-Metabolomics to Elucidate Metabolic Regulation of Fruit Polyphenolics Among Solanaceous Crops.

Carla Lenore F Calumpang,Tomoki Saigo,Mutsumi Watanabe,Takayuki Tohge

doi:10.3390/metabo10050209

Carla Lenore F Calumpang, Tomoki Saigo + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo10050209

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Journal: Metabolites	Publication Date: May 19, 2020
Citations: 19	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Nara Institute of Science and Technology

Abstract

Many solanaceous crops are an important part of the human daily diet. Fruit polyphenolics are plant specialized metabolites that are recognized for their human health benefits and their defensive role against plant abiotic and biotic stressors. Flavonoids and chlorogenates are the major polyphenolic compounds found in solanaceous fruits that vary in quantity, physiological function, and structural diversity among and within plant species. Despite their biological significance, the elucidation of metabolic shifts of polyphenols during fruit ripening in different fruit tissues, has not yet been well-characterized in solanaceous crops, especially at a cross-species and cross-cultivar level. Here, we performed a cross-species comparison of fruit-metabolomics to elucidate the metabolic regulation of fruit polyphenolics from three representative crops of Solanaceae (tomato, eggplant, and pepper), and a cross-cultivar comparison among different pepper cultivars (Capsicum annuum cv.) using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). We observed a metabolic trade-off between hydroxycinnamates and flavonoids in pungent pepper and anthocyanin-type pepper cultivars and identified metabolic signatures of fruit polyphenolics in each species from each different tissue-type and fruit ripening stage. Our results provide additional information for metabolomics-assisted crop improvement of solanaceous fruits towards their improved nutritive properties and enhanced stress tolerance.

Highlights

Solanaceae is an agronomically- and botanically-diverse plant taxonomic group, with members ranging from vegetable crops through medicinal plants to ornamentals.Few representative crops of economic importance include tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), eggplant (Solanum melongena), and pepper (Capsicum annuum)
We focused on differences in the metabolic accumulation pattern between tissue types and three fruit ripening stages to develop a better understanding of metabolic trade-off in fruit polyphenolics
Not in all cases were the polyphenolic compounds more abundant during the same stage of development between tissue types

Summary

Introduction

Solanaceae (nightshade family) is an agronomically- and botanically-diverse plant taxonomic group, with members ranging from vegetable crops through medicinal plants to ornamentals.Few representative crops of economic importance include tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), eggplant (Solanum melongena), and pepper (Capsicum annuum). With available genome sequences [1,2] and genetic resources from different tomato varieties and natural mutants [3], tomato has become the first model crop for fleshy fruit ripening, fruit pigmentation, specialized (secondary) metabolism, and plant defense [4,5,6,7,8,9]. The metabolomics approach, focusing on specialized metabolism, is being used on other solanaceous plants, including tobacco (Nicotiana spp.) [16,17], potato (Solanum tuberosum) [18,19,20], petunia (Petunia spp.) [21], and Atropa spp. Developing similar resources for related crops is still a goal of the scientific community [23]

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