Metabolomic Study of Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) to Interpret Plant Behavior under Variable Field Conditions in View of Smart Agriculture Applications

Abstract

To tackle the urgency of smarter crop management, the complex nature of agricultural ecosystems needs to be better understood, employing and combining different techniques and technologies. In this study, untargeted metabolomics and agrometeorological survey were coupled to study the variation of Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench metabolome during crop development, in response to environmental and anthropic factors. Twelve crop fields in the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy, were monitored and sampled at different stages, seedling (Ss), advanced vegetative (Sv), and ripening (Sr), and subjected to 1 H NMR-based metabolomics. The analytical method developed resulted to be successful to quickly analyze different sorghum organs. Dhurrin, a cyanogenic glucoside, resulted to be a biomarker of crop quality and development, and several insights into its turnover and functions were obtained. In particular, p-glucosyloxy-2-hydroxyphenylacetic acid was identified, for the first time, as the main metabolite accumulated in sorghum at Sr, after gradual dhurrin neutralization. During plant life, fertilization and biotic and abiotic stress reflected peculiar metabolomic profiles. Water supply and soil features (i.e., clay content) were correlated to metabolomic variations, affecting dhurrin (and related metabolites), amino acids, organic acids, and carbohydrate content. Increase in chlorogenic acid was registered in consequence of predator attacks. Moreover, grain from three fields presented traces of dhurrin and the lowest antioxidant potential, which resulted in poor grain quality. Metabolomics turned out to be a promising tool in view of smart agriculture for monitoring plant growth status and applying appropriate agricultural practices since the early stage of crop development.

Chemical Fingerprinting of Heat Stress Responses in the Leaves of Common Wheat by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

“…Additionally, FTIR spectroscopy enables high-throughput measurements [ 53 , 54 ], suggesting that it can be used for chemo-typing heat-stress responses in crop breeding programs. Easier setup of FTIR spectroscopic facilities in comparison to that of other metabolomic platforms may also be beneficial for applying this technology to field metabolome studies [ 55 , 56 ]. Recently, FTIR-based remote sensing technologies have emerged as a new tool for monitoring the surface properties of land [ 15 , 57 ], and this may further broaden the possibility of developing spectrum-based plant diagnoses for crop production and breeding.…”

Different Seasonal Collections of Ficus carica L. Leaves Diversely Modulate Lipid Metabolism and Adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 Adipocytes

“…Despite the contradictory findings found in the literature [ 39 ], several studies have reported that Ficus carica L. extracts are endowed with potential health benefits against obesity-associated metabolic disorders and diabetes, but their mechanism of action is still debated [ 14 , 19 ] and the compounds responsible for the bioactivities have not yet been identified. Moreover, the plant metabolome is strongly affected by a number of biotic and abiotic factors, including seasonal variation [ 27 ]. The fluctuation in plant metabolome can be consequently reflected in their biological activities.…”

“…The spectra were manually phased and baseline corrected and calibrated to the internal standard trimethyl silyl propionic acid sodium salt (TMSP) at δ 0.0 using Mestrenova software (Mestrelab Research, Spain). The analysis of 1 H-NMR profiles of extracts was performed based on an in-house library and in comparison with the literature [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ].…”

Effects of LED supplemental lighting on the growth and metabolomic profile of Taxus baccata cultivated in a smart greenhouse

“…The samples were dried at 40˚C and powdered using an electrical grinder (IKA, A11 basic, Merck, Italy). Plants extracts were prepared according to Mandrone et al [43] with slight modifications. Briefly, thirty mg of each sample were extracted with 1 mL of mixture (1:1) of phosphate buffer (90 mM; pH 6.0) in H 2 O-d2 (containing 0.01% TMSP) and MeOH-d4 by ultrasonication (TransSonic TP 690, Elma, Germany) for 20 minutes.…”