Dehydration-driven organization of metabolites into NaDES-like assemblies in orthodox seeds

Desiccation tolerance in plants, especially during orthodox seed dehydration, relies on compatible solute accumulation, complex molecular mechanisms, and intermolecular organizations that remain poorly understood. We combined metabolite profiling, mass spectrometry imaging, and electrospray and cold-spray ionization mass spectrometry to investigate metabolite organization into natural deep eutectic solvent-like assemblies during oilseed rape seed dehydration. We show that sucrose colocalizes and interacts with organic and amino acids in seed tissues to form hydration-dependent, sucrose-centered assemblies, whose formation is promoted by water loss and reproduced in bioinspired artificial mixtures displaying NaDES-like physicochemical properties. These findings support the idea that seed metabolites, with sucrose as preferential matrix, organize into eutectic-like supramolecular networks during dehydration, suggesting a physicochemical basis for cytoplasmic stabilization in desiccation-tolerant seeds.