Analysis of Soluble Sugar Content in Minute Quantities of Rice Tissues by GC-MS

Soluble sugars play key roles in plant growth, development, and adaption to the environment. Characterizing sugar content profiling of plant tissues promotes our understanding of the mechanisms underlying these plant processes. Several technologies have been developed to quantitate soluble sugar content in plant tissues; however, it is difficult with only minute quantities of plant tissues available. Here, we provide a detailed protocol for gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS)-based soluble sugar profiling of rice tissues that offers a good balance of sensitivity and reliability, and is considerably more sensitive and accurate than other reported methods. We summarize all the steps from sample collection and soluble sugar extraction to derivatization procedures of the soluble extracted sugars, instrumentation settings, and data analysis.