In the framework of the Bioceb-specific teaching unit “Specialized metabolites in biotechnologies” taking place in AgroParisTech and coordinated by Jean-Luc Cacas, Florian Pion, Loic Rajjou and Julia Zinsmeister, the students from Cohort 3 – Track 1 were hosted at the Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin’s analytical platform “Observatoire du vegetal” (The Plant Observatory) for a 4-days practical training session (13-17 November 2023).
Fig. 1 Advanced mass-spectrometry equipments used by the students for the analysis of specialized metabolites: (left) LC-MS/MS triple quadripole and (right) high-resolution LC-QTOF.
Under the supervision of François Perreau, INRAE researcher at the Chemistry/Metabolism section, the students were trained to metabolomics on specialized seed metabolites. All along this week of work-in lab and tutorials, they had the chance to meet several experts of the topic. They were able to go from extraction and analysis to data processing, statistics and their interpretation, right through to proposing biological hypotheses and new experiments. They particularly appreciated to be trained and be able to get their hands into the data themselves (as they said, "it’s in action that you learn the most"), thus encountering real problems (file conversion, shifting rows in tables, etc.) preparing them to their future research life. In the same line, they enjoyed thinking about real subjects and seeing real data (not only the data on their subject of seeds developed under heat stress, but also data that a research scientist used to illustrate her presentation of the LC-QTOF technic). As a precious support, the students were provided with a thirty pages booklet gathering operating modes and theoretical explanations.
Fig. 2 Mass spectrometry identification of a specialized metabolite performed during a tutorial
On their side, the supervisors enjoyed working with the group of students. They particularly appreciated their ability to work in a team and to bring ideas and suggestions showing their competences not only in biology, but also in chemistry.
Many thanks to all the IJPB INRAE team involved in the organization/implementation of this successful training session: Stéphanie Boutet, Massimiliano Corso, François Perreau, Aline Voxeur, and the two PhD students Lea Barreda and Chandrodhay Saccaram.
Updated January 2024