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Metabolomic technology applications for plants, health and outreach META-PHOR

Lead Research Organisation: Rothamsted Research
Department Name: UNLISTED

Abstract

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Technical Summary

This consortium project is funded by the EU to provide a co-ordinated approach to a plant metabolomic technology platform designed to meet the needs of the diet and health agenda. Using three crops - melon, rice and broccoli - as experimental material the consortium will develop standard protocols for chemical analysis and data capture and mining. RRes are involved in NMR and GC-MS data collection and in the development of software tools for automated analysis of such data sets.

Planned Impact

unavailable
 
Description The overall objective of the EU funded META-PHOR project was to bring together key European players with proven track-records in plant metabolic profiling, analytical chemistry, plant biology and human nutrition, in a focused, coordinated initiative to develop a high throughput metabolite based
phenotyping platform appropriate for the targeted improvement of plant breeding, engineering and processing strategies aimed at a more varied range of food products with
enhanced nutritional quality.

We focused upon the following strategic objectives:
? To create an integrated, multidisciplinary european-based phenotyping platform with initial focus on the nutrition and health-related components and with a broad applicability
? To create a European consortium to enhance further the collaboration between research groups with an existing dedication to the development and application of
novel innovative, high throughput metabolite profiling tools for plants.
? To provide a means for direct intense interaction between biologists, nutritionists and technologists working on nutrition-related, quality aspects of european food crops
To design dedicated biological / bioinformatics tools appropriate for knowledge generation and decision management systems.
? To generate knowledge on nutrition, health and quality-related metabolites present in 3 important European crops: broccoli, melon and rice and enhance our understanding
on how this is influenced by physiology, genetics and environment.
? To incorporate and combine these activities with those of appropriate INCO partners and European SME's which could greatly benefit from having access to such a platform in their own applied research programmes.
? To establish an extensive outreach programme aimed at both science and society which shall enhance open access to the tools, information and knowledge generated.
Exploitation Route The collaborative research programme brought together 22 EU research laboratories to share expertise and harmonise analytical methods, particularly by the use of ring experiments designed to test reproducibility of analysis across different laboratories. The results on fragrant rice were of particular interest to the Asian rice breeding laboratories and that on melons to researchers and growers in France and Israel.
Sectors Agriculture

Food and Drink
 
Description The core of this project was always to be metabolomics technology development with an eye towards applications specifically to the benefit of the food and nutrition industries. Knowledge dissemination has therefore always been a major activity for this project for all partners. Pre-agreed plans for knowledge dissemination were based upon a variety of mechanisms focussed on the organisation of and participation in workshops, presenting the META-PHOR project and its output at scientific conferences, establishing a public website and publishing scientific papers and position documents on the potential of metabolomics as a technology and its application. members of the consortium played a key role in establishing sample and data standards in the international metabolomics community.
First Year Of Impact 2010
Sector Agriculture, Food and Drink
Impact Types Policy & public services
 
Title Plant Metabolomic Profiling 
Description Methods and technology for the high throughput compositional screening of plant genetic resources (metabolomics). The core screen is based on automated sample preparation and handling and analysis. Intial screening is carried out by a semi-automated combined nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and direct infusion electrospray mass spectrometric (MS) analysis. Multivariate analysis of thes profiles is utilised to discover metabolite biomarkers that correlate with the biological phenomenum and the genetic map of the species under study. Deeper analysis and biomarker authetication is carried out by ultra high resolution LC-MS studies and where relevant GC-MS analysis. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The Rothamsted plant metabolomics centre (MeT-RO) is a national facility, and was a pioneer to the development of other international centres in many advanced nations. Methods and philosophies developed in Rothamsted have been taken up by many other groups, particularly in the plant area, but also in the medical diagnostic use of metabolomics.