Campus Calendar

University of Minnesota, Departments of Horticultural Science and Plant and Microbial Biology

'Plant Metabolomics: Overview, Methodology and Use of Stable Isotopes' Official/Unofficial Story

Plants are capable of synthesizing vast numbers of organic compounds from resources present in their immediate environments.  This phytochemical abundance has expanded by natural selection as plants responded to various environmental pressures.  These pressures can be destructive phenomena such as herbivory, pathogens, UV light, temperature extremes, drought, nutrient insufficiency but also from beneficial phenomena such as mutualistic interactions, and attraction of pollinators and seed dispersers.  While Biology has benefited from centuries of descriptive information to support hypothesis-driven inquiry at both macroscopic and cellular levels, Biochemistry has frequently employed targeted methodologies that can be blind to patterns across metabolism that inform hypothesis generation/testing of the biochemical bases of biological phenomena.  Metabolomics is a post-Genomics disciple that attempts to apply analytical methods as broadly as possible to capture quantitative and qualitative information about the chemicals/metabolites in a biological system to provide chemical descriptive information for hypothesis generation.  The Hegeman laboratory uses Metabolomics approaches to examine plant stress biology, ecological interactions, medicinal plant properties, fruit flavor and fragrance etc.  Adrian will provide an overview of the approach, as well as a few examples from projects in his lab, and talk about using stable isotopes to address some specific methodological challenges in the field.

from Chemistry