Developing smart crops which yield more biomass to meet the increasing demand for plant biomass has been an active area of research in last few decades. We investigated metabolic alterations in two... Show moreDeveloping smart crops which yield more biomass to meet the increasing demand for plant biomass has been an active area of research in last few decades. We investigated metabolic alterations in two Arabidopsis thaliana mutants with enhanced growth characteristics that were previously obtained from a collection of plant lines expressing artificial transcription factors. The metabolic profiles were obtained directly from intact Arabidopsis leaves using high-resolution magic angle spinning (HR-MAS) NMR. Multivariate analysis showed significant alteration of metabolite levels between the mutants and the wild-type Col-0. Interestingly, most of the metabolites that were reduced in the faster-growing mutants are generally involved in the defence against stress. These results suggest a growth-defence trade-off in the phenotypically engineered mutants. Our results further corroborate the idea that plant growth can be enhanced by suppressing defence pathways. Show less
Climate change is a challenge for both current and future generations. New biological resources have to be developed in order to meet the demand for energy as well as the demand for food. One way... Show moreClimate change is a challenge for both current and future generations. New biological resources have to be developed in order to meet the demand for energy as well as the demand for food. One way of doing this is to make use of so-called smart crops, as they have improved yields and a small environmental footprint. Model plant organisms, such as Arabidopsis thaliana, can contribute to the development of smart crops as they have been studied extensively by the research community. The purpose of this research is to unravel the pathways leading to the enhanced growth characteristics phenotype of two phenotypically engineered Arabidopsis mutants from a systems biology perspective, by using metabolomics. In metabolomics, metabolites are studied both qualitatively and quantitively under specific growth conditions. Since metabolites are the end products of cellular processes, the metabolome is most closely related to the phenotype of plants. To obtain the metabolic profile directly from the leaves of Arabidopsis, high-resolution magic angle spinning (HR-MAS) NMR is used. Combined with multivariate analysis, biomarkers, related to the mutant phenotype, are determined. The biological interpretation of the biomarkers will be performed in a systems biology approach to obtain a model to explain the mutant phenotype. Show less
Tol, N. van; Rolloos, A.M.; Augustijn, D.; Alia, A.; Groot, H.J.M. de; Hooykaas, P.J.J.; Zaal, E.J. van der 2017
Arabidopsis thaliana is the most widely used model organism for research in plant biology. While significant advances in understanding plant growth and development have been made by focusing on... Show moreArabidopsis thaliana is the most widely used model organism for research in plant biology. While significant advances in understanding plant growth and development have been made by focusing on the molecular genetics of Arabidopsis, extracting and understanding the functional framework of metabolism is challenging, both from a technical perspective due to losses and modification during extraction of metabolites from the leaves, and from the biological perspective, due to random variation obscuring how well the function is performed. The purpose of this work is to establish the in vivo metabolic profile directly from the Arabidopsis thaliana leaves without metabolite extraction, to reduce the complexity of the results by multivariate analysis, and to unravel the mitigation of cellular complexity by predominant functional periodicity. To achieve this, we use the circadian cycle that strongly influences metabolic and physiological processes and exerts control over the photosynthetic machinery. High resolution-magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (HR-MAS NMR) was applied to obtain the metabolic profile directly from intact Arabidopsis leaves. Combining one- and two-dimensional 1H HR-MAS NMR allowed the identification of several metabolites including sugars and amino acids in intact leaves. Multivariate analysis on HR-MAS NMR spectra of leaves throughout the circadian cycle revealed modules of primary metabolites with significant and consistent variations of their molecular components at different time points of the circadian cycle. Since robust photosynthetic performance in plants relies on the functional periodicity of the circadian rhythm, our results show that HR-MAS NMR promises to be an important non-invasive method that can be used for metabolomics of the Arabidopsis thaliana mutants with altered physiology and photosynthetic efficiency. Show less
