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Comprehensive Metabolomics Studies of Plant Developmental Senescence

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Plant Senescence

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 1744))

Abstract

Leaf senescence is an essential developmental process that involves diverse metabolic changes associated with degradation of macromolecules allowing nutrient recycling and remobilization. In contrast to the significant progress in transcriptomic analysis of leaf senescence, metabolomics analyses have been relatively limited. A broad overview of metabolic changes during leaf senescence including the interactions between various metabolic pathways is required to gain a better understanding of the leaf senescence allowing to link transcriptomics with metabolomics and physiology. In this chapter, we describe how to obtain comprehensive metabolite profiles and how to dissect metabolic shifts during leaf senescence in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Unlike nucleic acid analysis for transcriptomics, a comprehensive metabolite profile can only be achieved by combining a suite of analytic tools. Here, information is provided for measurements of the contents of chlorophyll, soluble proteins, and starch by spectrophotometric methods, ions by ion chromatography, thiols and amino acids by HPLC, primary metabolites by GC/TOF-MS, and secondary metabolites and lipophilic metabolites by LC/ESI-MS. These metabolite profiles provide a rich catalogue of metabolic changes during leaf senescence, which is a helpful database and blueprint to be correlated to future studies such as transcriptome and proteome analyses, forward and reverse genetic studies, or stress-induced senescence studies.

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Acknowledgments

B. M.-R. and S.B. thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for funding (FOR 948; MU 1199/14-1 and 14-2, and BA4769/1-2). We thank the Max Planck Society (MPG) for funding, the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology (MPI-MP) for providing metabolomics and bioinformatics services, and the greenteam of the institute for growing plants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Potsdam-Golm, Germany

    Mutsumi Watanabe, Takayuki Tohge, Salma Balazadeh, Alexander Erban, Patrick Giavalisco, Joachim Kopka, Bernd Mueller-Roeber, Alisdair R. Fernie & Rainer Hoefgen

  2. Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam-Golm, Germany

    Salma Balazadeh & Bernd Mueller-Roeber

Authors
  1. Mutsumi Watanabe
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  2. Takayuki Tohge
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  3. Salma Balazadeh
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  4. Alexander Erban
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  5. Patrick Giavalisco
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  6. Joachim Kopka
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  7. Bernd Mueller-Roeber
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  8. Alisdair R. Fernie
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  9. Rainer Hoefgen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rainer Hoefgen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tobacco Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Qingdao, Shandong, China

    Yongfeng Guo

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Watanabe, M. et al. (2018). Comprehensive Metabolomics Studies of Plant Developmental Senescence. In: Guo, Y. (eds) Plant Senescence. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1744. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7672-0_28

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7672-0_28

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  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-7670-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-7672-0

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