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Article
Metabolomic Profiling of the Nectars of Aquilegia pubescens and A. Canadensis
PLoS ONE
  • Christos Noutsos, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York
  • Ann Perera, Iowa State University
  • Basil Nikolau, Iowa State University
  • Samuel M.D. Seaver, Argonne National Laboratory
  • Doreen Ware, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
1-1-2015
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0124501
Abstract

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).

Comments

This is an article from PLoS ONE 10 (2015): 1, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0124501. Posted with permission. See Additional Files for article correction.

Rights
This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Citation Information
Christos Noutsos, Ann Perera, Basil Nikolau, Samuel M.D. Seaver, et al.. "Metabolomic Profiling of the Nectars of Aquilegia pubescens and A. Canadensis" PLoS ONE Vol. 10 Iss. 5 (2015) p. 1 - 13
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/basil-nikolau/10/