Time-course metabolic profiling in Arabidopsis thaliana cell cultures after salt stress treatment

Salt stress is one of the most important factors limiting plant cultivation. Many investigations of plant response to high salinity have been performed using conventional transcriptomics and/or proteomics approaches. However, transcriptomics and proteomics techniques are not all-encompassing methods that can achieve exclusive insights into the metabolite networks contributing to biochemical reactions. Hence, the functions of the complex stress response pathways are yet to be determined, especially at the metabolic level. A time-course metabolic profiling with Arabidopsis thaliana cell cultures after the imposition of salt stress is reported in this study. Analyses of primary metabolites, especially small polar metabolites such as amino acids, sugars, sugar alcohols, organic acids, and amines, was performed by GC/MS and LC/MS at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 12, 24, 48, and 72 h after a salt-stress treatment with 100 mM NaCl being the final concentration. The mass chromatographic data were converted into matrix data sets, which were subjected to data mining processes, including principal component analysis (PCA) and batch-learning self-organizing mapping analysis (BL-SOM). The mining results suggest that the methylation cycle for the supply of methyl groups, the phenylpropanoid pathway for lignin production, and glycinebetaine biosynthesis are synergetically induced as a short-term response against salt-stress treatment. The results also suggest the the co-induction of glycolysis and sucrose metabolism as well as co-reduction of the methylation cycle as long-term responses to salt stress.