Hordatines and Associated Precursors Dominate Metabolite Profiles of Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) Seedlings: A Metabolomics Study of Five Cultivars

In the process of enhancing crop potential, metabolomics offers a unique opportunity to biochemically describe plant metabolism and to elucidate metabolite profiles that govern specific phenotypic characteristics. In this study we report an untargeted metabolomic profiling of shoots and roots of barley seedlings performed to reveal the chemical makeup therein at an early growth stage. The study was conducted on five cultivars of barley: 'Overture', 'Cristalia', 'Deveron', 'LE7' and 'Genie'. Seedlings were grown for 16 days post germination under identical controlled conditions, and methanolic extracts were analysed on an ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) system. In addition, an unsupervised pattern identification technique, principal component analysis (PCA), was performed to process the generated multidimensional data. Following annotation of specific metabolites, several classes were revealed, among which phenolic acids represented the largest group in extracts from both shoot and root tissues. Interestingly, hordatines, barley-specific metabolites, were not found in the root tissue. In addition, metabolomic profiling revealed metabolites potentially associated with the plants' natural protection system against potential pathogens. The study sheds light on the chemical composition of barley at a young developmental stage and the information gathered could be useful in plant research and biomarker-based breeding programs.