SGMS Meeting 2001

Metabolic Profiling as a Diagnostic Tool for Mode-of-Action (MoA) Identification in Herbicide Research

G. Laue, J. Blanz, T. Brodmeier, E. Gassmann, and K. Kreuz
Syngenta Crop Protection AG, P.O. Box, CH-4002 Basel

Among the 'omics' technologies "metabonomics" or "metabolic profiling" has received relatively little attention so far. Whereas genomics and proteomics are in the center of the scientific interest the screening of endogenous metabolites just began to emerge.
Besides NMR, FTMS, and LC/MS approaches, GC/MS appears to be the most promising technology. It allows a relatively convenient and sensitive compound identification at the expense of a time-consuming sample preparation and derivatization.

Herbicides are widely used for controlling weeds in crops. They can be classified according to their mode of action (MoA) or target site. About 20 different MoAs are currently known to be covered by commercial herbicides. For some herbicides the exact MoA still remains unknown, for others more than one MoA is discussed. For a variety of reasons extensive efforts are currently made to discover novel MoAs.

We present the exploitation of Metabolic Profiling to MoA research. The application of herbicides causes specific changes in the metabolic profiles. Using GC/MS, these changes are extracted based on the quantitative analysis of a large number of biochemical pathway intermediates and products yielding typical patterns. The comparisons of untreated and treated plants allow the classification of known MoA and, at least as important, may give clues to tackle novel MoAs.