Metabolic profiling and scavenging activities of developing circumscissile fruit of psyllium (Plantago ovata Forssk.) reveal variation in primary and secondary metabolites

Abstract

Background: Developing fruit is considered as an excellent model to study the complex network of metabolites which are altered rapidly during development. Results: Metabolomics revealed that developing psyllium fruit is a rich source of primary metabolites (ω-3 and ω-6 fatty acids and amino-acids), secondary metabolites and natural antioxidants. Eidonomy and anatomy confirmed that psyllium fruit followed five stages of development. Total lipids and fatty acids were synthesized differentially; saturated fatty acids (FAs) increased, whereas total polyunsaturated FAs decreased with increasing developmental stage. The unsaturation index and degree of unsaturation showed a catenary curve. Principal component analysis confirmed a significant shift in the FA profile from bud initiation to the maturation stage. Similarly, a similar level of total amino acids was present at different developmental stage following a temporal biosynthesis pathway. Total phenolic and flavonoid contents decreased in tandem with fruit development. Twenty-two different metabolites were identified, and metabolic changes were also observed during fruit development. Six metabolites were detected exclusively in the flowering stage, whereas two were detected in each of early and maturity stages of development. The metabolites apigenin and kaempferol were detected ubiquitously in all developmental stages. Time-dependent metabolomics revealed a shift in metabolite biosynthesis. Conclusion: During fruit development, metabolites, FAs, amino acids, total phenolics, total flavonoids, antioxidants and scavenging activities changed progressively and were co-ordinately linked to each other. As a future perspective, further studies will focus on the validation of identified metabolites, which integrated with transcriptomics data and will reveal the metabolic regulatory network of development psyllium fruit.

Introgression of a novel cold and drought regulatory‐protein encoding CORA‐like gene, SbCDR, induced osmotic tolerance in transgenic tobacco

“…Modulation in the overall metabolome due to the developmental and environmental cues has previously been reported (Patel et al, 2020;Shekhar, Agrawal, et al, 2016). Even an overall reprogramming of the accumulation of primary and secondary metabolites due to the ectopic expression of a single gene has also been studied (Shekhar et al, 2016b;.…”

Plants Metabolome Study: Emerging Tools and Techniques

“…Several integrated technologies and methodologies such as mass spectrometry (MS) based methods, including gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid chromatography mass-spectroscopy (LC-MS), capillary electrophoresismass spectrometry (CE-MS), fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance-mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS) matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI), ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) are used for large-scale analysis of highly complex mixtures of plant extracts [6]. In fact, these analytical methods have shown their potential in many plant species, including halophytes, medicinal plants, and food crops such as Salicornia brachiata, Cuminum cyminum, Plantago ovata, Solanum lycopersicum, Oryza sativa, Triticum aestivum, and Zea mays [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] (Table 1). In the last decade, a significant rise in the use of integrated metabolomics analysis methods has been reported over individual analytical platforms, as the latter does not provide holistic aspects of a plant metabolome [3].…”

Antioxidant, Scavenging, Reducing, and Anti-Proliferative Activities of Selected Tropical Brown Seaweeds Confirm the Nutraceutical Potential of Spatoglossum asperum

“…Metabolites were isolated and quantified using optimized method [33][34][35]. Briefly, dried-powered seaweed samples (100 mg) were extracted with cold methanol by vortexing, incubating at 70 • C for 10 min, and centrifugation at 11,000× g at 4 • C for 10 min.…”