PI: Adrian D. Hegeman (University of Minnesota - Twin Cities)
CoPI: Jerry D. Cohen (University of Minnesota - Twin Cities)
Key Collaborators: Christopher P. Keller (Minot State University), Paul J. Overvoorde, Christopher T. Calderone, Rebecca C. Hoye, Keith T. Kuwata, and Kathryn E. Splan (Macalester College).
The ability to quantitatively monitor the dynamics of metabolites in an organism is critical to fully understand the complex interactions of biology's Central Dogma: DNA to RNA to Protein to Metabolite. In part because of the diversity of compounds found in living organisms, especially in plants, the ability to define this critical area in the functional analysis of living plants has been slower to develop than nucleic acid and protein methods. This project addresses impediments to the development of techniques for measuring metabolic dynamics in biological systems. The present limitations include the rather low numbers of compounds that have typically been identified, relatively insensitive procedures that yield insufficient spatial resolution and the dearth of true quantitative methods. The specific aims are: 1) provide improved sample preparation and derivatization methods that yield structural information to create new spectral library resources for metabolite identification by liquid chromatography (LC) and gas chromatography (GC) coupled to mass spectrometry (MS), and 2) use stable isotope metabolically labeled plant materials for isotope dilution with robust quantification by LC and GC MS and tandem MS. The work will be focused on rice and tomato, with the expectation that the methods and procedures will be generally applicable to many plant species.
Metabolomics as an emerging discipline has yet to realize its full potential for discovery. It is important, therefore, to continue investing in methodological development and access to resources to collect, process and understand metabolomics data. A major component of this project focuses on method development and as such may have its greatest impact by providing educational resources for method implementation. The investigators are strongly committed to recruiting and training people belonging to groups underrepresented in the sciences and attempt to provide undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdocs with a multidisciplinary education in an open minded, diverse and supportive environment. This includes quality mentoring in professional development and research and participation in graduate and postdoctoral programs on the campus. In addition, this proposal will expand the core training in a summer workshop in metabolomics to be held at the University of Minnesota. Interaction with primarily undergraduate institutions will provide access to advanced metabolomic experiences to a wider student population. Short-term dissemination of data, processing algorithms and methods will be accomplished by means of the project website that will be administered and maintained at the University of Minnesota (www.metabolomics.umn.edu/). Metabolite mass spectral libraries will be deposited for long-term access with the Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank (BMRB) (www.bmrb.wisc.edu/metabolomics/).
