Three-in-one method for high throughput plant multi-omics

Multi-omics has gained momentum over the past few years especially in plant single cell-type analysis as they aim to understand cellular molecular networks across different levels of genetic information flow. For multi-omics sample preparation, molecular extractions performed non-simultaneously create rooms for variation, inaccurate data, waste of limited samples, resources and labor. Here we optimized a protocol for 3-in-1 simultaneous extraction of RNA, metabolites, and proteins from the same single cell-type sample. We adapted a commercially available RNA kit with a few modifications to obtain high quality starting materials for sequencing and LC-MS/MS-based metabolomics and proteomics. RNAs are bound to the column, metabolites were extracted in a polar solvent and proteins are precipitated using acetone. This creates an all-in-one workflow using a standard RNA kit. Little training is required to carry out this protocol as it is simple and easy to use. It may be used with a wide range of plant species and different amounts of starting materials, including single cells.