Metabolic Fingerprinting of Dormant and Active Flower Primordia of Ribes nigrum Using High-Resolution Magic Angle Spinning NMR

Global warming may modify the timing of dormancy release and spring growth of buds of temperate fruit crops. Environmental regulation of the activity-dormancy cycle in perennial plants remains poorly understood at the metabolic level. Especially the fine scale metabolic dynamics in the meristematic zone within buds have received little attention. In this work we performed metabolic profiling of intact floral primordia of R. nigrum isolated from buds differing in dormancy status using HR-MAS NMR. The technique proved useful in monitoring different groups of metabolites, e.g. carbohydrates and amino acids, in floral primordia and allowed metabolic separation of primordia from endo- and ecodormant buds. In addition, due to its non-destructive character HR-MAS NMR may provide novel insights into cellular compartmentation of individual biomolecules, which cannot be obtained using liquid-state NMR. Out results show that HR-MAS NMR may be an important method for metabolomics of intact plant structures.