Promoting Human Nutrition and Health through Plant Metabolomics: Current Status and Challenges

Abstract

Plant metabolomics plays important roles in both basic and applied studies regarding all aspects of plant development and stress responses. With the improvement of living standards, people need high quality and safe food supplies. Thus, understanding the pathways involved in the biosynthesis of nutritionally and healthily associated metabolites in plants and the responses to plant-derived biohazards in humans is of equal importance to meet people’s needs. For each, metabolomics has a vital role to play, which is discussed in detail in this review. In addition, the core elements of plant metabolomics are highlighted, researches on metabolomics-based crop improvement for nutrition and safety are summarized, metabolomics studies on plant natural products including traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for health promotion are briefly presented. Challenges are discussed and future perspectives of metabolomics as one of the most important tools to promote human nutrition and health are proposed.

Recent Advances in Plant Metabolomics: From Metabolic Pathways to Health Impact

“…Moreover, these authors have highlighted the properties of chicoric and rosmarinic acids as anti-apoptotic and anti-reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated damages by enhancing brain antioxidants and reducing cytokines and inflammatory mediators. They have shown that combining chicoric and rosmarinic acids presents a powerful natural antioxidant activity against neonicotinoids-induced oxidative injuries [8] When considering human nutrition and crop improvement, the review by Sun et al [5] highlights metabolomics as an important approach to understand plant's chemical complexity in tissues, organs, developmental stages or in stress conditions, as well as to assess food security. Instrumentation for metabolomics-based studies is discussed bringing attention to the fact that no single metabolomics method can determine all metabolites in a sample and that different analytical approaches should be considered to have the best possible coverage of the metabolome [5].…”

“…They have shown that combining chicoric and rosmarinic acids presents a powerful natural antioxidant activity against neonicotinoids-induced oxidative injuries [8] When considering human nutrition and crop improvement, the review by Sun et al [5] highlights metabolomics as an important approach to understand plant's chemical complexity in tissues, organs, developmental stages or in stress conditions, as well as to assess food security. Instrumentation for metabolomics-based studies is discussed bringing attention to the fact that no single metabolomics method can determine all metabolites in a sample and that different analytical approaches should be considered to have the best possible coverage of the metabolome [5]. The selection of the metabolomics approach (targeted vs. non-targeted) as well as the pipeline established, were pointed to be crucial and fully dependent on experiment aims.…”

“…This Biology Special Issue “Recent Advances in Plant Metabolomics: From Metabolic Pathways to Health Impact” addresses cutting-edge knowledge on plants’ metabolism, underlying stress responses, plant natural product chemistry and benefits and the role of plant metabolites in human nutrition and health. It comprises 4 articles from 26 authors [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ] that mainly summarized the status, applications, and challenges of plant metabolomics in the context of crop breeding, food quality and safety, and human nutrition and health. It also addresses the impact of plant metabolites such as chicoric and rosmarinic on the toxicity of thiacloprid, one of the main insecticides used in agriculture to control pests [ 8 ].…”

“…When considering human nutrition and crop improvement, the review by Sun et al [ 5 ] highlights metabolomics as an important approach to understand plant’s chemical complexity in tissues, organs, developmental stages or in stress conditions, as well as to assess food security. Instrumentation for metabolomics-based studies is discussed bringing attention to the fact that no single metabolomics method can determine all metabolites in a sample and that different analytical approaches should be considered to have the best possible coverage of the metabolome [ 5 ].…”

“…The need for standardization of plant metabolomics studies was also brought into the discussion. Then, Sun and co-workers [ 5 ] highlight the enormous potential for crop improvement of linking specific metabolites or metabolic pathways with health and nutrition-related traits. In that sense, metabolite quantitative trait loci (mQTLs) and metabolome-based genome-wide association study (mGWAS) comes to the front of the application of metabolomics in breeding programs [ 5 ].…”