PROMA - PlatfoRm fOr Metabolites Analyses

植物和微藻是新的生物活性分子的重要来源，这些生物活性分子由于其作为抗病毒、免疫抑制、抗氧化、酶抑制剂、除草剂和抗微生物剂的巨大潜力而多年来受到欢迎。其中，药用植物中的特化代谢物（SM）被广泛用于各种应用，并且通常在自然界中暴露于生物和非生物胁迫因素的植物中产生。植物粗提物中通常含有不同活性SM的复杂混合物，需要有效的系统来筛选这些植物材料。快速、准确地检测具有生物活性的SM在植物化学研究中至关重要。植物提取物的有效筛选使用色谱方法如高效液相色谱（HPLC）与质谱（MS）的组合进行。高效液相色谱-质谱联用技术通过高效液相色谱的高效分离能力和质谱对少量植物样品提取物的准确结构表征，为植物提取物中未知SM的快速定性和鉴定提供了一种新的强有力的方法。目前的资助申请旨在支持开发一个用于代谢分析的平台，以下简称PROMA。PROMA将支持由I教授领导的关于微藻和植物细胞SM的多样但互补的研究计划。Desgagné-Penix（IDP）和T. Missihoun（TM）at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. PROMA包括共同申请人的NSERC领导的研究计划所必需的HPLC-MS系统，该系统解决了非常不同的问题（植物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将用于非靶向和靶向代谢组学研究，高通量筛选，鉴定和定量几种不同类型的SM，如样品中痕量水平的生物碱，大麻素，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关于专门代谢物的检测、鉴定和定量方面的准确、灵敏和具体数据。此外，PROMA还将被其他参与有机化学、法医学、生物医学和环境科学的研究人员用于获得高质量的数据。这将导致这些学科的重大进展。除了这些进步，大量的学生将接受培训，使用PROMA进行基础研究分析，并获得所有生物化学研究人员所需的高度可转移的技能;因此，使他们成为具有竞争力和高科技素质的未来科学家。

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.