Comparative metabolomics in Glycine max and Glycine soja under salt stress to reveal the phenotypes of their offspring.

Metabolomics is developing as an important functional genomics tool for understanding plant systems’ response to genetic and environmental changes. Here, we characterized the metabolic changes of cultivated soybean C08 (Glycine max L. Merr) and wild soybean W05 (Glycine soja Sieb.et Zucc.) under salt stress using MS-based metabolomics, in order to reveal the phenotypes of their eight hybrid offspring (9H0086, 9H0124, 9H0391, 9H0736, 9H0380, 9H0400, 9H0434, and 9H0590). Total small molecule extracts of soybean seedling leaves were profiled by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and liquid chromatography–Fourier transform mass spectrometry (LC–FT/MS). We found that wild soybean contained higher amounts of disaccharides, sugar alcohols, and acetylated amino acids than cultivated soybean, but with lower amounts of monosaccharides, carboxylic acids, and unsaturated fatty acids. Further investigations demonstrated that the ability of soybean to tolerate salt was mainly based on synthesis of compatible ...