Einsatz von Protein- und Metabolit-Profiling-Methoden zur Unterscheidung von ökologischem und konventionellem Weizen

Summary

The interest in methods to proof organic food authenticity increases with the steadily rising popularity of food labelled organic. Profiling techniques enable the detection of a wide range of substances in biological samples. Together with bioinformatics tools these techniques are useful for biomarker searching, e. g. in plant extracts. Metabolomic and proteomic profiling techniques were used to screen organic and conventional wheat, originating from the DOK field trial in Switzerland. Up to 11 wheat varieties from three harvest years were analysed. We were able to detect a number of metabolites and proteins with significant differences between samples of conventional and organic grown wheat of the variety “Runal”. Results viewed across all 11 varieties indicated a higher influence of both the variety and the seasonal effects than the cultivation form. Nevertheless, PCA performed on metabolite data for the individual varieties and for individual growing seasons revealed a clustering according to the cultivation forms. Further research is necessary to assess, whether these methods can be applied to distinguish organic and conventional wheat from agricultural practice.