HR-MAS NMR-Based Metabolomic Approach to Study the Effect of Fungicidal Stress on Wheat Seed Germination

The plant metabolome is sensitive to variations in the growth environment, as evidenced by metabolomic profiling. Changes in the levels of specific metabolites can be quantified via high-resolution magic angle spinning (HR-MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and can help identify key meta-bolic pathways related to environmental stress. We study here the metabolic response of wheat seeds to fungicidal stress during germination. A delay in ger-mination and a decrease in percentage germination were observed for fungicide-treated seeds. Our work validates the use of HR-MAS NMR spectroscopy as a novel method to gain quantitative information about the influences of micro-stresses on nutritional back-grounds in plants.