Metabolomic Profiling of Corn and Rice Extracts Using a Benchtop GC-TOFMS

Significance of the Topic

Corn and rice represent critical global crops for food feed and bioenergy Metabolomic profiling unveils the biochemical landscape underlying crop quality resistance and stress tolerance High throughput analytical methods accelerate breeding programs enhance nutritional assessment and support quality control in agriculture and food industries

Objectives and Study Overview

This study evaluated a benchtop Pegasus BT GC TOFMS for rapid metabolomic profiling of corn and rice extracts Key goals included optimizing sample derivatization chromatography and data processing workflows to detect and annotate a wide range of metabolites with high sensitivity and throughput

Methodology and Instrumentation

• Extraction by adding 4 1 methanol water to freeze dried plant material with ribitol as internal standard followed by vortex heating centrifugation and vacuum drying
• Derivatization using MSTFA at 60C for one hour to silylate polar metabolites
• Gas chromatography on Agilent 7890 with GERSTEL MPS2 autosampler Rxi-5ms 20 m column helium carrier gas constant flow temperature gradient from 60 to 320C
• Mass spectrometry on LECO Pegasus BT ion source at 250C mass range 45 to 600 m z at 20 spectra per second
• Data processing in ChromaTOF 5 0 for peak finding deconvolution spectral library matching and retention index confirmation

Main Results and Discussion

The Pegasus BT system demonstrated parts per trillion sensitivity and a linear dynamic range spanning 0 01 to 50 pMol per uL for amino acid standards Calibration curves for methionine phenylalanine aspartic acid lysine leucine and isoleucine exhibited correlation coefficients above 0 996 Comprehensive profiling of corn extracts identified 42 representative metabolites across amino acids organic acids sugars terpenes and sterols with average spectral match scores of 870 per 1000 High fidelity matches for aconitic acid palmitic acid serine and phytol achieved scores above 900 per 1000 with retention index values within ten units of reference Retrospective Target Analyte Finding in ChromaTOF reduced processing time and detected 22 targeted metabolites in both corn and rice samples

Benefits and Practical Applications

• Rapid high throughput analysis under ten minutes per sample
• High sensitivity and broad dynamic range for trace quantitation
• Automated deconvolution and library matching for diverse compound classes
• Flexible workflows supporting routine QA QC research and breeding studies

Future Trends and Potential Applications

Future developments may integrate high resolution mass spectrometry expanded spectral libraries machine learning driven annotation and alternative chromatographic methods Broader applications are expected in crop breeding stress physiology nutritional evaluation and food authenticity testing

Conclusion

The Pegasus BT GC TOFMS combined with ChromaTOF 5 0 software offers a robust sensitive and high throughput platform for plant metabolomics enabling rapid routine analysis of complex biological samples to support crop science and quality control efforts

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