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Study of polar metabolites in tobacco from different geographical origins by using capillary electrophoresis–mass spectrometry

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Abstract

Many metabolites in plant are highly polar and ionic. Their analysis using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry can be problematic. Therefore a capillary electrophoresis–mass spectrometry (CE–MS) method with charge-driven separation characteristic was developed to investigate polar metabolites in tobacco. To obtain as many features as possible, extraction of polar metabolites was optimized by the design of experiments and evaluated by univariate statistics. Method validation was carried out to evaluate the analytical characteristics including calibration curve, precision, sample stability and extraction reproducibility. The developed method was successfully applied in studying 30 tobacco leaves obtained from Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in China. A total of 154 polar metabolites were identified based on available database. Multivariate pattern recognition clearly revealed the metabolic differences between the two geographic areas and 43 significantly different metabolites were defined by the non-parametric hypothesis test (Mann–Whitney U test) and false discovery rate. Some key metabolites involved in photosynthesis such as ribulose 1,5-disphosphate, fructose 1,6-diphosphate, glycine, betaine, GABA and serine were found to be susceptible to environmental conditions. This study shows that the metabolic profiling based on CE–MS can clearly discriminate tobacco leaves of different geographical origins and understand the relationship between plant metabolites and their geographical origins.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Separation Science for Analytical Chemistry, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, China

    Jieyu Zhao, Chunxiu Hu, Jun Zeng, Yanni Zhao, Junjie Zhang, Yuwei Chang, Lili Li, Chunxia Zhao, Xin Lu & Guowang Xu

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  1. Jieyu Zhao
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  2. Chunxiu Hu
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  3. Jun Zeng
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  4. Yanni Zhao
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  10. Guowang Xu
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Correspondence to Guowang Xu.

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Zhao, J., Hu, C., Zeng, J. et al. Study of polar metabolites in tobacco from different geographical origins by using capillary electrophoresis–mass spectrometry. Metabolomics 10, 805–815 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11306-014-0631-4

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