Abstract
We previously proposed a procedure of metabolite annotation to identify mass signals representing metabolites by analyzing LC-FTICR-MS data. Here, we applied the metabolite annotation procedure to Micro-Tom fruit, and constructed the metabolite annotation database, which facilitates a comprehensive characterization of tomato fruit metabolites. Analysis of methanol extract of the fruits at different ripening stages enabled us to provide annotations to 869 metabolites in total, of which 494 appeared to be novel. The number of metabolites was larger in the peel than the flesh at all stages, and increased with ripening. Modifications such as glucosylation and acylation frequently occurred in fruit metabolites. We annotated 70 flavonoids and 93 glycoalkaloids, and confirmed that they undergo various modifications during ripening. The metabolite annotation procedure was further applied to comparative analyses of metabolites in fruits of mutant lines. This work was partly supported by Research and Development Program for New Bio-Industry Initiatives.
