Metabolic profiling to discriminate wheat near isogenic lines, with quantitative trait loci at chromosome 2DL, varying in resistance to fusarium head blight

The resistance in wheat to fusarium head blight (FHB) is controlled by several quantitative trait loci (QTLs), which are mainly expressed as two different types of resistance. The objective of this study was to assess the potential of a metabolomics approach to identify resistance-related metabolites associated with a QTL that confers resistance to FHB. Two near isogenic lines (NIL), with alternate alleles for the FHB resistance/susceptibility QTL on chromosome 2DL, were grown under greenhouse conditions and spikelets were inoculated with F. graminearum. Metabolites were extracted from the rachis and spikelets using a mixture of methanol-water and chloroform, and subsequently analyzed using GC/MS. Compound identification and quantification were achieved using AMDIS, GMD and NIST libraries, and MET-IDEA as the software platform. A total of 182 components were detected. A t-test of the quantities of these metabolites identified 27 resistance-related (RR) metabolites, including 22 constitutive (RRC) and 8 induced (RRI), with three common metabolites. Canonical discriminant analysis was used to classify treatments and to identify the associated metabolic functions. The putative metabolic pathways linking the RR-metabolites identified here are discussed. Key words: Functional genomics, metabolomics, fusarium head blight, Triticum aestivum, Fusarium graminearum