PROMA - PlatfoRm fOr Metabolites Analyses

植物和微藻是新的生物活性分子的重要来源，由于其在抗病毒、免疫抑制、抗氧化、酶抑制剂、除草剂和抗微生物方面的巨大潜力，近年来得到了广泛的应用。其中，在药用植物中发现的特殊代谢物(SM)具有广泛的用途，在自然界中经常产生于暴露于生物和非生物胁迫因素的植物中。植物粗提物通常含有不同生物活性SM的复杂混合物，需要有效的系统来筛选这些植物材料。生物活性SM的快速准确检测是植物化学研究的关键。植物提取物的有效筛选是使用高效液相色谱(HPLC)和质谱仪(MS)相结合的色谱方法进行的。高效液相色谱质谱联用技术为植物提取物中未知SM的快速定性检测和鉴定提供了一种新的有效方法。目前的赠款申请旨在支持开发一个代谢物分析平台，以下简称PRMA。PROMA将支持微藻和植物细胞中SM的多样化但互为补充的研究项目，该项目由魁北克大学的I.Desgagné-Penix(IDP)教授和T.Missihoun(TM)教授领导。PROMA包括NSERC领导的研究项目所必需的高效液相色谱-质谱学系统，这些研究项目解决了非常不同的问题(植物新陈代谢和合成生物学以及植物对胁迫的反应)，但用于研究这些问题的基本植物化学分析是相似的。例如，PROMA将用于非定向和定向代谢组学研究，高通量筛选、鉴定和定量几种不同类型的SM，如样品中以痕量水平存在的生物碱、大麻、脂肪酸和酚类化合物。PROMA平台将为涉及各种生物工程微藻细胞、真菌细胞、愈伤组织和植物组织的研究提供准确、敏感和特定的数据，以检测、鉴定和量化专门的代谢物。此外，参与有机化学、法医学、生物医学和环境科学的更多研究人员将使用PROMA来获得高质量的数据。这将导致这些学科取得重大进展。除了这些进展外，大量的学生将接受使用PRMA进行基础研究分析的培训，并获得所有生物化学研究人员所需的高度可移植的技能；从而使他们成为具有竞争力和高科技能力的未来科学家。

Plants and microalgae are important sources for new bioactive molecules, which have gained popularity over the years due to their enormous potential as antiviral, immunosuppressive, anti-oxidant, enzyme inhibitors, herbicide, and anti-microbial agents. Among them, specialized metabolites (SM) such as those found in medicinal plants are widely used for various applications and often produced in nature in the plants exposed to biotic and abiotic stress factors. Crude plant extracts usually contain complex mixture of different bioactive SM and efficient systems are necessary to screen those plant materials. The rapid and accurate detection of bioactive SM is crucial in phytochemical investigations. Efficient screening of plant extracts is performed using chromatographic methods such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in combination with mass spectrometry (MS). HPLC-MS provides a new powerful approach for the rapid qualitative determination and identification of unknown SM in plant extracts through efficient separation capabilities of HPLC and exact structural characterization by MS from a small amount of plant sample extracts. The present grant application aims to support the development of a PlatfoRm fOr Metabolites Analyses hereafter referred to as PROMA. PROMA will support the diverse but complementary research programs on SM from microalgae and plant cells, which are led by the professors I. Desgagné-Penix (IDP), and T. Missihoun (TM) at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). PROMA comprises a HPLC-MS system necessary for the NSERC-led research programs of the co-applicants, which address very distinct questions (plant metabolism and synthetic biology & plant response to stress), but the basic phytochemical analyses used to study these questions are similar. For example, PROMA will be used for untargeted and targeted metabolomic study, high-throughput screening, identification, and quantification of several different types of SM such as alkaloids, cannabinoids, fatty acids, and phenolic compounds that are present at traces level in samples. The PROMA platform will provide accurate, sensitive and specific data in terms of detection, identification and quantification about specialized metabolites for research involving various species of bioengineered microalgae cells, fungal cells, callus, and plant tissues. Additionally, PROMA will be used by additional researchers involved in organic chemistry, forensics, biomedical and environmental sciences to obtain top quality data. This will lead to important advances in these disciplines. In addition to these advances, a large number of students will be trained to perform basic studies assays using PROMA and to acquire highly transferable skills that are required for all biochemistry researchers; thus, making them as future scientists with competitive and high-tech caliber formation.