Conference presentation
Metabolomics in chemical ecology: help to save Australia's natural biodiversity
USC Research Conference, 2014 (Sunshine Coast, Australia, 14-Jul-2014–18-Jul-2014)
University of the Sunshine Coast
2014
Abstract
Metabolites, the chemical entities that are transformed during metabolism, provide a functional readout of cellular biochemistry. The measurement of metabolite concentrations and their changes in tissues and biological fluid provides valuable insights into the biochemistry of different physiological processes such as growth and maturation, aging, diurnal variation, chemical communication and the effect of external factors. With emerging technologies in mass spectrometry, thousands of metabolites can now be qualitatively and quantitatively measured from minimal amounts of biological material, which has thereby enabled systems-level analyses. In our on-going research on chemical ecology, we have applied a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based metabolomics approach in our two on-going projects: (i) to investigate metabolite profiles of crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) during their aggregation and spawning period, and (ii) to identify changes of metabolites during dormancy (aestivation) in a pest land snail Theba pisana. Results from the first study shows that COTS release sex-specific small molecules during their spawning and aggregation, which are specific to male and female. The main objective of our second study was to identify metabolites that are up-regulated and down-regulated during the aestivation period. Haemolymph collected from active snails, at two weeks and four weeks aestivation, shows that long-term aestivation leads to the production of mainly adenosine and other metabolites such as arginyl-hydroxyproline, cyanidin 3-galactoside, L-arginine, L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine, which helps them to survive stress. These studies demonstrate the utility of global metabolite profiling to implicate new discoveries linking cellular pathways to biological mechanism to understand chemical ecology and with the ultimate goal to use this information to control Australia's pest species populations.
Details
- Title
- Metabolomics in chemical ecology: help to save Australia's natural biodiversity
- Authors
- Utpal Bose (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering
- Conference details
- USC Research Conference, 2014 (Sunshine Coast, Australia, 14-Jul-2014–18-Jul-2014)
- Publisher
- University of the Sunshine Coast
- Date published
- 2014
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2014 The Author.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science and Engineering - Legacy; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99448713702621
- Output Type
- Conference presentation
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