Correlation of metabolic fingerprints with differential growth responses of cold-inhibited salicylate mutants

寒冷是一种主要的环境压力，决定了特定地理位置的农业和园艺生产力。低温限制了早季牧草的生长，从而影响了肉类和农作物的产量。气候变化给未来世界粮食产量的预测增加了一个重大不确定性，目前的一些理论表明，英国气候将变冷，而不是变暖。去年，我们发表了一项关于低温下植物生长的激素控制的新发现，发现了模式植物拟南芥的突变株，这些突变株在受控环境下冷却到5摄氏度时表现出比正常生长强得多的生长。这项研究是由BBSRC植物和微生物科学委员会资助的[Scott IM，Clarke SM，Wood Je，Mur Laj(2004)。植物生理学135：1040-1049]。目前的建议是一项后续行动，它利用BBSRC的植物和微生物代谢组学(MET-RO)中心的启动，并寻求利用这些设施来分析植物细胞中广泛的低分子生物化学物质，以产生所谓的“代谢指纹”。我们的初步研究表明，代谢指纹可以用来根据拟南芥突变体在低温下的生长倾向对其进行分类。MET-RO中心的服务将产生详细和信息丰富的代谢指纹，从中我们将了解到许多关于细胞状态的信息，这些状态决定了植物在寒冷中生长更强劲的能力。

Cold is a major environmental stress that determines the agricultural and horticultural productivity of particular geographical locations. Low temperatures impact meat as well as crop production, by limiting early-season growth of forage grass. Climate change adds a major uncertainty to future projections of world food production, with some current theories indicating cooling rather than warming of the UK climate. Last year we published a new discovery on the hormonal controls of plant growth at low temperature, finding mutants of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana that showed much stronger than normal growth in controlled environments cooled to 5oC. This research was financed by the BBSRC Plant and Microbial Sciences Committee [Scott IM, Clarke SM, Wood JE, Mur LAJ (2004) Salicylate accumulation inhibits growth at chilling temperature in Arabidopsis. Plant Physiology 135:1040-1049]. The present proposal is a follow-up, which capitalises on the launch of the BBSRC's Plant and Microbial Metabolomics (MeT-RO) Centre, and seeks to use these facilities to analyse a wide spectrum of the low molecular weight biochemicals in plant cells, to produce so-called 'metabolic fingerprints'. Our preliminary studies show that metabolic fingerprints can be used to classify Arabidopsis mutants according to their propensity for growth at low temperature. The MeT-RO Centre service will produce detailed and informative metabolic fingerprints from which we will learn a great deal about the cellular states that determine the ability of plants to grow more strongly in the cold.