About this Research Topic
Metabolomics analysis allows a comprehensive definition of grape (and its products) quality, ranging from the objective to the product’s perceived quality. Two distinct approaches are generally applied, depending on the number of compounds to analyze, the structural information needed, and the sensibility grade of the analysis: the target metabolic profiling and the untargeted metabolic fingerprinting. The former approach is based on a "hypothesis-driven" experimental design. It gives the exact identification and quantification of the analyzed metabolites, whilst the latter approach is, being globally "hypothesis-generating", allowing the analysis of a more significant number of metabolites, but just dealing with which is limited to the comparison of the fingerprinting of two or more biological systems, without deepening the structural identification of the observed metabolites.
The complexity of grape metabolome from the qualitative and quantitative standpoint suggests that a single analytical technology needs to provide sufficient metabolomics information. Moreover, metabolomics usually faces multifactorial problems and covers a wide range of more holistic research issues (e.g. how grapes grown in different irrigation regimes or viticulture regions can vary their chemical composition). Frequently, metabolomics analyses have been applied either for fingerprinting purposes, without metabolites identification, which leads to the clustering of experimental groups or, conversely, for profiling purposes, knowing the identity of the identifying metabolites and their quantitative perturbation, as describers of differences in specific phenotypes. However, the real power of metabolomics is realized when both qualitative and quantitative analyses are performed; in other words, when fingerprinting and profiling can be used jointly for defining, for instance, molecular "biomarkers" that can allow explaining and, in the best of the hypotheses, foresee the differences among phenotypes.
This Research Topic welcomes the submission of reviews, original research papers, mini-reviews, and all manuscripts within the article types accepted by the journal Frontiers in Horticulture.
This research aims to gather new advances on the application of high throughput technologies for fingerprinting and profiling analysis (preferably, if integrated and complimentarily employed), and we invite research of various analytical platforms that could be used in metabolomics such as (but not limited to):
• Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)
• IR AND UV-Vis spectroscopy
• Low resolution MS-Chromatography (HPLC-ESI-MS, GC-MS)
• High resolution MS-Chromatography (UPLC-ESI-MS, fast GC-MS, GCxGC-MS).
The complexity of grape metabolome from the qualitative and quantitative standpoint suggests that a single analytical technology needs to provide sufficient metabolomics information. Moreover, metabolomics usually faces multifactorial problems and covers a wide range of more holistic research issues (e.g. how grapes grown in different irrigation regimes or viticulture regions can vary their chemical composition). Frequently, metabolomics analyses have been applied either for fingerprinting purposes, without metabolites identification, which leads to the clustering of experimental groups or, conversely, for profiling purposes, knowing the identity of the identifying metabolites and their quantitative perturbation, as describers of differences in specific phenotypes. However, the real power of metabolomics is realized when both qualitative and quantitative analyses are performed; in other words, when fingerprinting and profiling can be used jointly for defining, for instance, molecular "biomarkers" that can allow explaining and, in the best of the hypotheses, foresee the differences among phenotypes.
This Research Topic welcomes the submission of reviews, original research papers, mini-reviews, and all manuscripts within the article types accepted by the journal Frontiers in Horticulture.
This research aims to gather new advances on the application of high throughput technologies for fingerprinting and profiling analysis (preferably, if integrated and complimentarily employed), and we invite research of various analytical platforms that could be used in metabolomics such as (but not limited to):
• Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)
• IR AND UV-Vis spectroscopy
• Low resolution MS-Chromatography (HPLC-ESI-MS, GC-MS)
• High resolution MS-Chromatography (UPLC-ESI-MS, fast GC-MS, GCxGC-MS).
Keywords: fingerprinting, profiling, NMR, MS, quality, biomarker, clusterization
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
