Metabolite profiling of the carnivorous pitcher plants Darlingtonia and Sarracenia

PLoS One. 2017 Feb 21;12(2):e0171078. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0171078. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Sarraceniaceae is a New World carnivorous plant family comprising three genera: Darlingtonia, Heliamphora, and Sarracenia. The plants occur in nutrient-poor environments and have developed insectivorous capability in order to supplement their nutrient uptake. Sarracenia flava contains the alkaloid coniine, otherwise only found in Conium maculatum, in which its biosynthesis has been studied, and several Aloe species. Its ecological role and biosynthetic origin in S. flava is speculative. The aim of the current research was to investigate the occurrence of coniine in Sarracenia and Darlingtonia and to identify common constituents of both genera, unique compounds for individual variants and floral scent chemicals. In this comprehensive metabolic profiling study, we looked for compound patterns that are associated with the taxonomy of Sarracenia species. In total, 57 different Sarracenia and D. californica accessions were used for metabolite content screening by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The resulting high-dimensional data were studied using a data mining approach. The two genera are characterized by a large number of metabolites and huge chemical diversity between different species. By applying feature selection for clustering and by integrating new biochemical data with existing phylogenetic data, we were able to demonstrate that the chemical composition of the species can be explained by their known classification. Although transcriptome analysis did not reveal a candidate gene for coniine biosynthesis, the use of a sensitive selected ion monitoring method enabled the detection of coniine in eight Sarracenia species, showing that it is more widespread in this genus than previously believed.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Alkaloids / analysis*
  • Data Mining
  • Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry
  • Genes, Plant
  • Metabolomics*
  • Phylogeny
  • Piperidines / analysis*
  • Plant Proteins / genetics
  • Polyketide Synthases / genetics
  • Sarraceniaceae / chemistry
  • Sarraceniaceae / classification
  • Sarraceniaceae / genetics
  • Sarraceniaceae / metabolism*
  • Species Specificity
  • Transcriptome

Substances

  • Alkaloids
  • Piperidines
  • Plant Proteins
  • Polyketide Synthases
  • coniine

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Finnish Doctoral Program in Plant Science, Societas pro Fauna et Flora Fennica, Eteläsuomalaisten ylioppilaiden säätiö, Oskar Öflunds Stiftelse, the Otto A. Malm Foundation (all to HH), VTT and the Academy of Finland (decision number 138808 to HR, and 265966 to PG). VTT provided support in the form of salaries for authors [HH, TS-L, HR], but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the "author contributions" section. The other funders did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.