Metabolomics Analyses of Cotyledon and Plumule Showing the Potential Domestic Selection in Lotus Breeding

Abstract

Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) seeds are widely consumed as functional food or herbal medicine, of which cotyledon (CL) is the main edible part, and lotus plumule (LP) is commonly utilized in traditional Chinese medicine. However, few studies have been conducted to investigate the chemical components of CL and LP in dry lotus seeds, not to mention the comparison between wild and domesticated varieties. In this study, a widely targeted metabolomics approach based on Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-electrospray ionization-Tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-ESI-MS/MS) was utilized to analyze the metabolites in CL and LP of China Antique (“CA”, a wild variety) and Jianxuan-17 (“JX”, a popular cultivar). A total of 402 metabolites were identified, which included flavonoids (23.08% to 27.84%), amino acids and derivatives (14.18–16.57%), phenolic acids (11.49–12.63%), and lipids (9.14–10.95%). These metabolites were classified into ten clusters based on their organ or cultivar-specific characters. Most of these metabolites were more abundant in LP than in CL for both varieties, except for metabolites belonging to organic acids and lipids. The analysis of differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) demonstrated that more than 25% of metabolites detected in our study were DAMs in CL and LP comparing “JX” with “CA”, most of which were less abundant in “JX”, including 35 flavonoids in LP, 23 amino acids and derivatives in CL, 7 alkaloids in CL, and 10 nucleotides and derivatives in LP, whereas all of 11 differentially accumulated lipids in LP were more abundant in “JX”. Together with the fact that the seed yield of “JX” is much higher than that of “CA”, these results indicated that abundant metabolites, especially the functional secondary metabolites (mainly flavonoids and alkaloids), were lost during the process of breeding selection.

Exploring domestication pattern in lotus: insights from dispensable genome assembly

“…Lotus has been cultivated in Asia for over 7000 years and domesticated into three different subgroups: FL, RL, and SL, based on the specific characteristics of flower, rhizome, and seed, respectively ( Ming et al., 2013 ). Although many studies have been conducted to illuminate causal factors of different agronomic traits ( Huang et al., 2018 ; Li et al., 2020 ; Liu et al., 2020 ; Qi et al., 2021 ), few works were done to clarify the dispensable genome in each subgroup. A single reference genome was inefficient in identifying whole genetic variations within one species, limiting the genetic improvement in crops ( Tao et al., 2019 ).…”

Studies on Lotus Genomics and the Contribution to Its Breeding

“…Starch branching enzyme (SBE) genes are key regulatory genes during starch synthesis, and NnSBEI and NnSBEIII were identified as related to the chain length of amylopectin in lotus [65]. In addition, comparative metabolomics between wild germplasm "CA" and domesticated cultivar "JX-17" indicated that the seed yield and the content of metabolites showed tradeoffs [66]. For nutritional and medicinal values of lotus seed, the metabolomics-assisted strategy might be applied in lotus breeding in the future [67].…”