An award is made to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center to purchase a tandem mass spectrometer for plant cellular and subcellular metabolic studies. The investment in mass spectrometry technology and method development at the Danforth Center benefits integrated studies of plant metabolism and provides guiding protocols for the greater scientific community. The projects supported by this new instrumentation aim to increase productivity of food and biofuel crops through a detailed understanding of how plants turn energy provided by the sun to biomass and how plants sense and respond to their environment and attack by pathogens. As part of the development of new technologies, PI Bradley Evans and Co-PI Doug Allen will perform a special study with young investigators from Harris-Stowe State University to probe the new instrument's capability to analyze difficult samples. This will add to the educational outreach taking place at the Danforth Center. Currently, the training of tomorrow's scientists occurs through an active NSF-REU program, recruitment of high school students that work in Danforth Center laboratories for classroom credit, participation in a regional program for high school students - STARS (Students and Teachers As Research Scientists), workshops for teachers and an interactive middle- and high school mentoring program that connects our scientists with nearby schools. These programs are essential to core Danforth Center mission goals to strengthen the plant science community.
The long term goal is to improve plant productivity that: i) proficiently feeds a growing world population, ii) provides sustainable feed-stock alternatives to petroleum and iii) supplies useful bioactive compounds; all designed to improve quality of life. Advanced tandem mass spectrometry instrumentation is needed to investigate metabolites present at very low and dynamic levels and segregated to specific cells and organelles. A major impediment to understanding biochemical function in plants is our incomplete characterization of metabolism. Plant metabolism is a very dynamic process and operates in tiny compartments and low amounts of material. Thus it is the fine architecture and dynamic metabolic events throughout plant life that define function, fitness, agricultural yield and allow plants to respond to changing environments and stresses. These activities are, however, not quantitatively understood and incomplete metabolic characterization prevents elucidation of biochemical pathways and gene and protein functions, thereby precluding successful applications in biotechnology. Sensitive mass spectrometers that are capable of analyzing minute concentrations have the potential to transform understanding in many aspects of plant function. Research efforts on NSF-funded and other projects at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and surrounding community are advancing science through methods development on scantly present metabolites and will be greatly extended by this technology.
