Coupling Metabolic Source Isotopic Pair Labeling and Genome Wide Association for Metabolite and Gene Annotation in Plants.

To deepen our understanding of plant gene function, it is important that we advance our knowledge of plant genomes and metabolic activity. With metabolite synthesis information in hand, we will have the capability to unlock higher plant productivity, develop new strategies to protect plants from stressors, and develop new plant-based products. This project applies isotopic labeling to characterize amino acid-derived metabolites in Arabidopsis and then applies Genome-Wide Association (GWA) to identify the genes responsible for their synthesis. A computational pipeline was utilized to generate metabolic features that are derived from the labeled amino acids and then we applied criterions to determine mass features of interest. This project aims to classify metabolites based on the precursor-of-origin and to provide the function of annotated genes that are associated with plant metabolism. Using this method, the methionine-derived metabolites glucoerucin, propylcysteine sulfoxide, glucoiberin, L-methionine sulfoxide, and dihomomethionine were identified. It is likely that mass features in our computational pipeline were identified but they have yet to be identified as metabolites in the literature. This information can be referenced for future research in metabolite identification. In combination with GWA, this method can also help to identify metabolites and candidate genes associated with their synthesis. This method allows for users to mass identify and classify metabolites based on the precursor-of-origin.