Metabolomic Profiling of the Nectars of Aquilegia pubescens and A. Canadensis.
To date, variation in nectar chemistry of flowering plants has not been studied in detail. Such variation exerts considerable influence on pollinator-plant interactions, as well as on flower traits that play important roles in the selection of a plant for visitation by specific pollinators. Over the past 60 years the Aquilegia genus has been used as a key model for speciation studies. In this study, we defined the metabolomic profiles of flower samples of two Aquilegia species, A. Canadensis and A. pubescens. We identified a total of 75 metabolites that were classified into six main categories: organic acids, fatty acids, amino acids, esters, sugars, and unknowns. The mean abundances of 25 of these metabolites were significantly different between the two species, providing insights into interspecies variation in floral chemistry. Using the PlantSEED biochemistry database, we found that the majority of these metabolites are involved in biosynthetic pathways. Finally, we explored the annotated genome of A. coerulea, using the PlantSEED pipeline and reconstructed the metabolic network of Aquilegia. This network, which contains the metabolic pathways involved in generating the observed chemical variation, is now publicly available from the DOE Systems Biology Knowledge Base (KBase; http://kbase.us).
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States of America.
Christos
C
Noutsos
W.M. Keck Metabolomics Research Laboratory, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States of America.
Ann M
AM
Perera
W.M. Keck Metabolomics Research Laboratory, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States of America; Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology, Iowa, State University, Ames, Iowa, United States of America.
Basil J
BJ
Nikolau
Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, United States of America; Computation Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
Samuel M D
SM
Seaver
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States of America; USDA-ARS-NAA, Robert W. Holley Center, Ithaca, New York, United States of America.
Doreen H
DH
Ware
D031884:Aquilegia / Q000378:metabolism*; D035264:Flowers / Q000378:metabolism; D053858:Metabolic Networks and Pathways; D055442:Metabolome; D055432:Metabolomics / Q000379:methods*; D057048:Plant Nectar / Q000378:metabolism*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D013045:Species Specificity
D057048:Plant Nectar