Stable isotope labeling of Arabidopsis thaliana for an NMR-based metabolomics approach

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) will become a key technology in plant metabolomics with the use of stable isotope labeling and advanced hetero-nuclear NMR methodologies. To demonstrate the power of this approach, we performed multi-dimensional hetero-nuclear NMR analysis of metabolic movement of carbon and nitrogen nuclei in Arabidopsis thaliana. First, distinct ethanol-stress response was investigated using ¹³C-labeled wild type and an ethanol-hypersensitive mutant plants. Furthermore, we followed nitrogen fluxes in ¹⁵N-labeled seeds during the initiation of germination in vivo. The future role of stable isotope-labeling combined with advanced hetero-nuclear NMR in plant metabolomics is discussed.