Buckwheat Metabolome - New Publication

We are pleased to highlight a new open access publication by our collaborators from Europe and China “Rewiring of the Seed metabolome during Tartary buckwheat domestication”. This paper was published in Plant Biotechnology Journal, and it showcases the first large-scale metabolome profiling in Tartary buckwheat, which will help breeding programs to increase levels of bioactive compounds and improve human diet.

Tartary buckwheat contains diverse bioactive compounds, such as flavonoids, anthraquinones and phenolic acids. Rutin, as one of the flavonoids of Tartary buckwheat, has a therapeutic value for cardiovascular disorders such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia and myocardial infarction. One of the naturally occurring anthraquinone derivatives (emodin) is known to have an anti-cancer effect. Furthermore, buckwheat has a well-balanced composition of amino acids, dietary fibers, minerals and vitamins. Given the nutritional and biomedical characteristics, Tartary buckwheat is considered an ideal functional food with diverse health benefits.

Crop domestication usually focuses on visible parameters, such as yield, seed shattering, grain size and quality, etc. In the meantime, metabolic changes invisible to the naked eye impact the content of many bioactive compounds in the final product. This paper describes the comprehensive metabolic profiling and a subsequent metabolic genome-wide association study (mGWAS) of 200 Tartary buckwheat accessions. A total of 540 differential metabolites were detected among three groups, and 1253 mGWAS signals were found. Among them, 384 mGWAS signals corresponding to 336 metabolites were identified to be subjected to domestication.

The authors mention that not only the agronomic traits changed, but the metabolites contents are affected during the domestication. In this metabolomics analysis authors identified bioactive compounds such as catechins, fagopyritols, salicylic acid and emodin, whose levels changed during Tartary buckwheat domestication, with multiple metabolism associated genes being seen to follow similar pattern. It was noted that the decrease of salicylic acid level results in the diminished disease resistance. The decrease of glycosylated emodin observed from the metabolomics analysis points to the negative impact of the domestication on this functional compound. 

The research team used our widely-targeted metabolomics approach, which combines high-throughput metabolite identification using Metware Database (MWDB) and sensitive quantitative analysis using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. The author stated that “widely targeted metabolomics studies have not only comprehensively defined the natural variation in metabolite abundance in rice, maize and wheat, but also revealed the metabolite changes that have occurred on the domestication of wheat, tomato and qingke”.

Our USA-based lab offers global and targeted metabolomics service for Agriculture & Breeding, and we currently accept plant samples for the following assays:

• Widely-Targeted Metabolomics for Plants
• Flavonoids Metabolomics
• Anthocyanin Assay
• Plant Hormone Assay
• Gibberellin Assay

If you are interested in further details, please get in touch with us and we would be happy to address your questions.