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BIOINFORMATICS

Rapid Classification of Phenotypic Mutants of Arabidopsis via Metabolite Fingerprinting^1,[W],[OA]

Institute of Plant Sciences, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich, CH–8092 Zurich, Switzerland (G.M., S.C.Z.); Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH–1015 Lausanne, Switzerland (V.P.N., A.C.D.); Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, CH–3013 Bern, Switzerland (M.T.); Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology, Potsdam-Golm 14476, Germany (A.K., N.S., P.G., A.R.F.); and Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan (J.C.)

We evaluated the application of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry metabolic fingerprinting to classify forward genetic mutants with similar phenotypes. Mutations affecting distinct metabolic or signaling pathways can result in common phenotypic traits that are used to identify mutants in genetic screens. Measurement of a broad range of metabolites provides information about the underlying processes affected in such mutants. Metabolite profiles of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) mutants defective in starch metabolism and uncharacterized mutants displaying a starch-excess phenotype were compared. Each genotype displayed a unique fingerprint. Statistical methods grouped the mutants robustly into distinct classes. Determining the genes mutated in three uncharacterized mutants confirmed that those clustering with known mutants were genuinely defective in starch metabolism. A mutant that clustered away from the known mutants was defective in the circadian clock and had a pleiotropic starch-excess phenotype. These results indicate that metabolic fingerprinting is a powerful tool that can rapidly classify forward genetic mutants and streamline the process of gene discovery.

² Present address: Center for Integrative Genomics, CH–1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.

The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Samuel C. Zeeman (szeeman{at}ethz.ch).

^[W] The online version of this article contains Web-only data.

^[OA] Open Access articles can be viewed online without a subscription.

www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.106.090795

^* Corresponding author; e-mail szeeman{at}ethz.ch; fax 41–44–632–1044.

Received October 3, 2006; accepted January 28, 2007; published February 2, 2007.

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