Current Advances in the Metabolomics Study on Lotus Seeds

Abstract

Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera), which is distributed widely throughout Asia, Australia and North America, is an aquatic perennial that has been cultivated for over 2,000 years. It is very stimulating that almost all parts of lotus have been consumed as vegetable as well as food, especially the seeds. Except for the nutritive values of lotus, there has been increasing interest in its potential as functional food due to its rich secondary metabolites, such as flavonoids and alkaloids. Not only have these metabolites greatly contributed to the biological process of lotus seeds, but also have been reported to possess multiple health-promoting effects, including antioxidant, anti-amnesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-tumor activities. Thus, comprehensive metabolomic profiling of these metabolites is of key importance to help understand their biological activities, and other chemical biology features. In this context, this review will provide an update on the current technological platforms, and workflow associated with metabolomic studies on lotus seeds, as well as insights into the application of metabolomics for the improvement of food safety and quality, assisting breeding, and promotion of the study of metabolism and pharmacokinetics of lotus seeds; meanwhile it will also help explore new perspectives and outline future challenges in this fast-growing research subject.

Integrated analysis of transcriptomic and metabolomic data reveals critical metabolic pathways involved in rotenoid biosynthesis in the medicinal plant Mirabilis himalaica

“…Transcriptomics have been widely used to reveal the biosynthetic pathways and regulatory mechanisms of key metabolites related to medicinal compounds in different medicinal plants (Wu et al 2010 , 2012 ; Rai et al 2016 ). Moreover, the application of metabolomics to medicinal plants has significantly facilitated the identification of the metabolic pathways of the active medicinal compounds in the plants (Zhu et al 2016 ; Akhatou et al 2016 ). Furthermore, the integration of both transcriptomics and metabolomics has been widely used to reveal the biosynthetic mechanisms of key metabolic pathways, especially those in non-model plants (Ibáñez et al 2014 ; Lin et al 2015 ).…”

The Quality Control of Tea by Near-Infrared Reflectance (NIR) Spectroscopy and Chemometrics

“…Recently, the combinational analysis of NIR spectroscopy and proton nuclear magnetic resonance ( 1 H NMR) has been used for distinguishing 90 Tieguanyin tea samples, which were collected from three different growing places (Xiandu, Xianghua, and Xiping towns) in the Fujian Province of China. 1 H NMR spectroscopy could offer the structure and content information of compounds in samples, which is complementary to the NIR data [61,62]. e 1 H NMR spectroscopy provided accurately qualitative information of 26 components (polyphenols, amino acids, and saccharides) in Tieguanyin tea.…”

Recent development in mass spectrometry and its hyphenated techniques for the analysis of medicinal plants

“…With the rapid technical advances and increasing availability of instrumentation, the tandem mass spectrometers have become the mainstream for the analysis of medicinal plants. Faster analysis, higher accuracy, sensitivity and resolution can be achieved by these MS instruments, including triple quadrupole (QqQ), linear ion trap‐time‐of‐flight (LIT‐TOF), quadrupole‐time‐of‐flight (Q‐TOF), TOF‐TOF, linear trap quadrupole‐Orbitrap (LTQ‐Orbitrap), and quadrupole‐Orbitrap (Q‐Orbitrap) . LC–MS is the most widely used approach for the analysis of medicinal plants .…”

“…Various detection technologies have been used for the analysis of medicinal plants, such as ultraviolet (UV) detection or photodiode array detection (DAD), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometry, and mass spectrometry (MS). Among these detection methods, MS is not only characterised by its high sensitivity, excellent resolution, and wide detection dynamic range, but also can be coupled with chromatography for online structural identification of each individual peak . Furthermore, liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC–MS) can be interfaced with nuclear magnetic resonance (LC‐NMR‐MS) for more confirmative structure analysis .…”