A new High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) platform for supporting research on plant physiology and fruit metabolomics

High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) is a commonly used, robust and versatile analytic technique for the isolation, identification, and quantification of individual components or metabolites in a solvent. In plant-related research, HPLC is often used for the characterization of relevant primary and secondary metabolites; including sugars, steroids, hormones, flavonoids, and phenolic compounds, and therefore is considered an essential and indispensable tool for studying plant physiology and metabolomics. The laboratory of Plant Genetics and Crop Improvement (PGCI - Prof. N. De Storme) and the laboratory for Molecular Plant Hormone Physiology (MPHP - Prof. B. Van de Poel) of the KU Leuven Crop Biotechnics Division currently integrate HPLC analysis in various fundamental and applied research projects that focus on pome fruit genetics and plant hormone physiology, respectively. However, the currently used HPLC system is outdated and suffers from major technical flaws and software incompatibilities, i.e. largely impairing efficient and accurate data acquisition and adding up costs for system maintenance. Moreover, as current and planned research projects involve analysis of large sample numbers, there is an imminent need for a new state-of-the-art HPLC platform that enables automated and high-throughput analysis of specific metabolites in a highly standardized manner. The requested HPLC system will be particularly used for the quantitative profiling of sugars, polyphenols, Vitamin C and osmolytes in plant tissues and will be integrated in ongoing and future research on plant physiology, defense response and fruit metabolomics. As such, the newly acquired HPLC system will support and facilitate plant-related research at the PGCI and MPHP lab, as well as at other research groups of the Crop Biotechnics Division, and in parallel establish a dedicated service platform for providing in planta Vitamin C and osmolyte assays to external parties.

Keywords:HPLC, plant physiology, fruit metabolome, sugars, osmolytes, Vitamin C, plant defense

Disciplines:Plant biochemistry, Plant morphology, anatomy and physiology, Plant developmental and reproductive biology, Plant genetics