Location: Crop Improvement and Protection Research
Project Number: 2038-21530-003-021-T
Project Type: Trust Fund Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Apr 1, 2024
End Date: Mar 31, 2025
Objective:
Metabolomics analyses of 500 lettuce lines at baby leaf and market maturity stages.
Approach:
Plant material: The diversity panel of 500 lettuce lines will be grown in field conditions using the agricultural practices for the Salinas Valley production area. Leaf samples will be harvested at baby leaf stage and again at commercial maturity, flash frozen in liquid nitrogen, and sent for metabolomic analyses.
Laboratory analyses: Plant tissue samples will be analyzed using the untargeted metabolomic approach to determine a relative content of metabolites. Metabolomics data will be statistically analyzed to identify metabolites with substantial differences among 500 lines and to find changes in metabolomic profiles from baby leaf to commercial maturity. Subsequently, Metabolome-Genome-Wide Association Study will be performed using metabolomics, genomic, and phenotypic data.
