Analysis of plant leaf metabolites reveals no common response to insect herbivory by Pieris rapae in three related host-plant species.

ABSTRACT: Studying the biochemical responses of different plant species to insect herbivory may help improve our understanding of the evolution of defensive metabolites found in host plants and their role in plant-herbivore interactions. Untargeted metabolic fingerprints measured as individual mass features were used to compare metabolite reactions in three Brassicales host-plant species (Cleome spinosa, Brassica oleracea, and Lunaria annua) to larval herbivore attack (Pieris rapae; Lepidoptera). Principal component analyses of metabolic fingerprints were able to distinguish among the three plant species and between uneaten control plants and plants that had been eaten. A large number of mass features (1186, 13% of mass features measured in control plants) were common to the three plant species. How

SUBMITTER: Riach AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4986865 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature