Characteristic differences in metabolite profile in male and female plants of dioecious Piper betle L.

Abstract

Piper betle is a dioecious pan-Asiatic plant having cultural and medicinal uses. It belongs to the family Piperaceae and is a native of the tropics although it is also cultivated in subtropical areas. Flowering in P. betle occurs only in tropical regions. Due to lack of inductive floral cycles the plant remains in its vegetative state in the subtropics. Therefore, due to lack of flowering, gender distinction cannot be made the in the subtropics. Gender distinction in P. betle in vegetative state can be made using Direct Analysis in Real Time Mass Spectroscopy (DARTMS), a robust highthroughput method. DARTMS analysis of leaf samples of two male and six female plants showed characteristic differences in the spectra between male and female plants. Semi-quantitative differences in some of the identified peaks in male and female landraces showed gender-based differences in metabolites. Cluster analysis using the peaks at m/z 151, 193, 235 and 252 showed two distinct clusters of male and female landraces. It appears that male and female plants besides having flowers of different sexes also have characteristic differences in the metabolites representing two metabolic types.

Asexual Morphological Differences in Male and Female Plants of <i>Commiphora </i><i>w</i><i>ightii</i> (Arn.) Bhandari - An Endangered Medicinal Plant

“…These types of studies will also help in understanding phenomenon of sex differentiation which is largely considered as an adaptation for out-breeding and also prove useful in judicious bio-resource utilization [44]. Thus, the gender-related bio-chemo diversity within a species is of considerable importance depending upon its uses.…”

Chemical Profiling and Discrimination of Medicinal Himalayan Iris Species Using Direct Analysis in Real Time Mass Spectrometry Combined with Principal Component Analysis

“…The chemical fingerprint data when combine with principal component analysis serves as an effective means for identifying the natural components as markers which can be used to discriminate among the species [38][39][40]42]. PCA is an unsupervised procedure that determines the directions of the largest variations in the data set and the data are generally presented as a two-dimensional plot (score plot) where the coordinate axis represents the directions of two largest variations [38][39][40]42]. The DART MS data obtained from root and leaf of I. crocea, I. ensata, I. germanica, I. hookeriana, I. kashmiriana and I. spuria was subjected to PCA.…”

Ethnobotany of dioecious species: Traditional knowledge on dioecious plants in India

“…In India, despite its availability in the wild, Piper betle is vegetatively propagated for cultivation and no flowering is observed in the subtropics due to the lack of inductive photoperiods. The female plants rarely produce any flower or fruit in the Indian climate (Bajpai et al, 2012;Guha, 2006). Despite the absence of flower and fruiting to identify male and female Piper betle, sexual dimorphism for leaf character was reported in terms of length and breadth ratio of leaves.…”