Cross-Species Comparison of Fruit-Metabolomics to Elucidate Metabolic Regulation of Fruit Polyphenolics Among Solanaceous Crops

Abstract

Many solanaceous crops are an important part of the human daily diet. Fruit polyphenolics are plant specialized metabolites that are recognized for their human health benefits and their defensive role against plant abiotic and biotic stressors. Flavonoids and chlorogenates are the major polyphenolic compounds found in solanaceous fruits that vary in quantity, physiological function, and structural diversity among and within plant species. Despite their biological significance, the elucidation of metabolic shifts of polyphenols during fruit ripening in different fruit tissues, has not yet been well-characterized in solanaceous crops, especially at a cross-species and cross-cultivar level. Here, we performed a cross-species comparison of fruit-metabolomics to elucidate the metabolic regulation of fruit polyphenolics from three representative crops of Solanaceae (tomato, eggplant, and pepper), and a cross-cultivar comparison among different pepper cultivars (Capsicum annuum cv.) using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). We observed a metabolic trade-off between hydroxycinnamates and flavonoids in pungent pepper and anthocyanin-type pepper cultivars and identified metabolic signatures of fruit polyphenolics in each species from each different tissue-type and fruit ripening stage. Our results provide additional information for metabolomics-assisted crop improvement of solanaceous fruits towards their improved nutritive properties and enhanced stress tolerance.

Comparative Metabolomic Profiling of Citrullus spp. Fruits Provides Evidence for Metabolomic Divergence during Domestication

“…Phylogenic variation be reflected by chemical composition or metabolomic characterization [ 27 , 52 , 53 ]. According to previous reports, teosinte, tropical maize and temperate maize exhibited significant divergences in distinct sets of metabolites [ 54 ].…”

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

“…Understanding genetic and biochemical mechanisms underlying trait formation in crops under both normal and stressed conditions form the basis of the application of metabolomics in crop improvement for human nutrition and health [ 3 , 5 ]. Metabolomics, combined with other omics, facilitates crop improvement by linking a specific metabolite or a metabolic pathway more rationally with a trait of nutritive and healthy importance, through interspecies metabolomics comparison [ 31 , 43 , 46 , 47 ], metabolite quantitative trait loci (mQTLs) [ 48 , 49 ], and metabolome-based genome-wide association study (mGWAS) [ 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. mGWAS alone or combined with phenotype GWAS (pGWAS) significantly increases the power of metabolomics in the successful identification of candidate causing genes of important traits in crops, such as rice [ 48 , 54 ], maize [ 55 , 56 ], wheat [ 49 , 52 , 57 ], tomato [ 58 , 59 ], and other crops [ 18 ].…”

“…In this case, plant metabolomics can be useful to identify genes that are associated with crop quality and safety under both normal and stress conditions to increase crop production and to meet the needs of food supply for increasing populations particularly under climate change conditions [ 15 , 17 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. In addition, plant metabolomics helps to better understand biochemical bases of what we eat from dietary foods, how metabolites change along the process of production, storage and transportation, and processing and cooking, and thus to design healthier foods, to overcome obesity and malnutrition problems that affect human health worldwide [ 7 , 20 , 29 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Furthermore, plant metabolomics aids in the discovery of new natural product-based drugs, the quality evaluation of herbal medicines, and pharmaceutical production, thus benefiting human health [ 21 , 23 ].…”

Special Issue on “Fruit Metabolism and Metabolomics”

“…This Special Issue covers a range of fruit species, including model fruit (tomato [12][13][14]), temperate (kiwifruit [15], mulberry [16]) or tropical fruit crops (pineapple [17], cashew [18]), genetic resources (melon [19]), and indigenous fruit (Davidson's plum, finger lime and native pepper berry [20]). Different analytical approaches are covered also: near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) [18], gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) [17], liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS) [16,18,21,22], LC-MS/MS [20], and a combination of several analytical strategies including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), GC-MS and LC-MS [19] or several omics [15]. The original research articles can be classified according to scientific domains: biochemical phenotyping of genetic resources for collection maintenance or intraspecific classification, generating knowledge about fruit growth, ripening and post-harvest, understanding metabolism, characterizing defence priming, identifying bioactive compounds for human nutrition and health.…”

“…Concerning metabolism regulation, a cross-species study using LC-MS was performed to clarify the metabolic regulation of fruit phenolics among three Solanaceae crops, tomato, eggplant and pepper [21]. It allowed identifying the metabolic signatures of phenolics in each species from different fruit tissue-types and ripening stages and provided information for future functional genomics or breeding approaches.…”