Abstract
Plant metabolomics is increasingly a routine option for plant biologists and food scientists. Here, we suggest some precautions for preparation and handling of samples issued from crop plants, in order to ensure sample representativeness and quality before their biochemical analysis. These precautions concern organ harvest either in the greenhouse or in the field, transport to the laboratory, and sampling, as well as sample pooling, storage, and transport to the analytical laboratory. They are in agreement with the recommendations of the “Plant Biology Context” group of the Metabolomics Standards Initiative concerning reporting practices for sample preparation. Some quality checking methods for long-term stability of metabolomics samples are also covered. The corresponding experimental procedures are illustrated using a representative study on melon fruit.
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Acknowledgements
This work was partially funded by the EU within the plant metabolomics project META-PHOR (FOOD-CT-2006-036220). We gratefully thank Sylvie Bochu, Françoise Leix-Henry from CEFEL (France) for following the cultures and providing the melons, Christel Renaud (France), Uzi Saar, and Fabian Baumkoler (Israel) for technical support, Dr Helen Jenkins for language corrections, and Dr Yves Gibon for critical reading of the manuscript.
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Biais, B. et al. (2011). Precautions for Harvest, Sampling, Storage, and Transport of Crop Plant Metabolomics Samples. In: Hardy, N., Hall, R. (eds) Plant Metabolomics. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 860. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-594-7_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-594-7_4
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