Metabolomics intervention towards better understanding plant traits

Authors: SHARMA, VINAY - International Crops Research Institute For Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) - India; GUPTA, PRATEEK - Hebrew University Of Jerusalem; PRISCILLA, KAGOLLA - Central University Of Karnataka; KUMAR, SHARAN - Central University Of Karnataka; ASHREE, BHAGY - Central University Of Karnataka; VEERSHETTY, AKASH - Central University Of Karnataka; RAMRAO, DEVADE - Central University Of Karnataka; KAMBAR, RAHUL - Central University Of Karnataka; NAIK, GAJANANA - Central University Of Karnataka; KUMAR, ANIRUDH - Indira Gandhi Agricultural University; Guo, Baozhu; ZHUANG, WEIJIAN - Fujian Agricultural & Forestry University; VARSHNEY, RAJEEV - International Crops Research Institute For Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) - India; PANDEY, MANISH - International Crops Research Institute For Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) - India; KUMAR, RAKESH - Central University Of Karnataka

Submitted to: Cells
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/1/2021
Publication Date: 2/7/2021
Citation: Sharma, V., Gupta, P., Priscilla, K., Kumar, S., Ashree, B., Veershetty, A., Ramrao, D.P., Kambar, R., Naik, G.R., Kumar, A., Guo, B., Zhuang, W., Varshney, R.K., Pandey, M.K., Kumar, R. 2021. Metabolomics intervention towards better understanding plant traits. Cells. 10(2):346. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10020346.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10020346

Interpretive Summary: Metabolomics in agricultural research has extended the opportunities towards the discovery and understand the new pathways and integrating with other biotechnology -omics-based data generated from genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics, has improved existing genome annotation. The de-novo domestication would become one of the most important areas in which metabolomics assisted breeding selection. A better understanding of known metabolic pathways will play a very important role for sustainable food security. A metabolic pathway through an integrated approach can redesign the ancestral species, which are resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses. Also, the advent of modern sequencing technology has been playing a pivotal role in fine-tuning the genome annotation by utilizing available transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome atlas data. These attempts have provided opportunities to dissect the metabolic pathways for developing stress-tolerant and nutrition-rich crops. In this review, we have covered the important area which has been flourished in the era of metabolomics and how the knowledge gathered through metabolomics has helped in dissecting different pathways through metabolic engineering for crop improvement.

Technical Abstract: Majority of the economically important plant and crop species are enriched with the availability of high-quality reference genome sequences forming the basis of gene discovery controlling important biochemical pathways. The transcriptomics and proteomics resources have also been made available for many of these plant species for expanding the understanding at expression levels but still lacking the integrated studies on genomics-transcriptomics-proteomics connecting to metabolomics, the most complicated phase in phenotype expression. Nevertheless, for the past few decades, emphasis has been more on metabolome to which play a crucial role in trait phenotype in crop improvement. The emergence of modern high throughput metabolome analyzing platforms has accelerated the discovery of a wide variety of chemical types of metabolites and new pathways, but also helped in improving known pathways. Elucidation of metabolic pathways is one of the successes for the development of improved lines in crop agronomy. Along with other -omics science, metabolomics studies have helped in characterization and annotation of new gene(s) function. Hereby, we summarize several areas in the field of crop development where metabolomics studies have made its remarkable impact. We also assess the recent research on metabolomics, together with other -omics, contributing toward engineering gene-targeted traits and key pathway(s).