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Metabolite profiling reveals complex relationship between developing xylem metabolism and intra-ring checking in Pinus radiata

  • Andrew Robinson , Peter Beets and Shawn D. Mansfield EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: December 13, 2021
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Holzforschung
From the journal Holzforschung Volume 76 Issue 2

Abstract

Globally, there has been an increasing amount of wood harvested from younger, fast-growing trees derived from plantation forests. As a consequence, producers and industrial consumers of wood products are becoming increasingly concerned with not only growth rates, but specific wood attributes that affect processing efficiencies and final product quality. Intra-ring checking is a problem that down-grades an unacceptably high proportion of radiata pine clearwood. Methods of identifying trees prone to this undesirable behaviour have been relatively destructive and time consuming, and from a breeding perspective, to date, there is no reliable method of predicting which selected progeny will later show a propensity to check. Using 120, 7-year-old Pinus radiata clones sampled from a common site, displaying difference in the propensity to form intra-ring checks, a GC/MS-based global metabolic profiling technique was employed to demonstrate that metabolomics can be used to accurately identify the checking phenotype. Metabolic profiling coupled with statistical tests was then used to develop models with greater than 90% efficiency to predict the intra-ring checking phenotype. Moreover, an inspection of unique metabolites contributing to the models indicated that coniferin, which is often found as a storage compound in rays, is a strong indicator of intra-ring checking, and indeed those genotypes that displayed the propensity to check inherently had a greater number of ray cells per unit area.

Keywords: coniferin; internal checking; metabolic profiling; metabolomics; Pinus radiata ; wood quality
Corresponding author: Shawn D. Mansfield, Department of Wood Science, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T1Z4, Canada, E-mail:

Funding source: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

Award Identifier / Grant number: RGPIN-2017-04566

Funding source: WQI, Ltd., New Zealand

Award Identifier / Grant number: #APP68

  1. Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.

  2. Research funding: We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Grant #RGPIN-2017-04566) and funding from WQI, Ltd., New Zealand (Grant #APP68) to S.D.M.

  3. Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.

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Received: 2021-02-26
Accepted: 2021-10-20
Published Online: 2021-12-13
Published in Print: 2022-02-23

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Celebrating 75 years of Holzforschung
  3. A brief overview on the development of wood research
  4. Metabolite profiling reveals complex relationship between developing xylem metabolism and intra-ring checking in Pinus radiata
  5. Synthesis of hydroxycinnamoyl shikimates and their role in monolignol biosynthesis
  6. Cryo secondary ion mass spectrometry for wood component visualization: a mini review
  7. Agricultural utilization of lignosulfonates
  8. Characterization of cellulose and TEMPO-oxidized celluloses prepared from Eucalyptus globulus
  9. Critical load for buckling of solid wood elements with a high slenderness ratio determined based on elastica theory
  10. Mapping the biotic degradation hazard of wood in Europe – biophysical background, engineering applications, and climate change-induced prospects
  11. Designing functional wood materials for novel engineering applications
https://doi.org/10.1515/hf-2021-0032
Keywords for this article
coniferin; internal checking; metabolic profiling; metabolomics; Pinus radiata; wood quality

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Celebrating 75 years of Holzforschung
  3. A brief overview on the development of wood research
  4. Metabolite profiling reveals complex relationship between developing xylem metabolism and intra-ring checking in Pinus radiata
  5. Synthesis of hydroxycinnamoyl shikimates and their role in monolignol biosynthesis
  6. Cryo secondary ion mass spectrometry for wood component visualization: a mini review
  7. Agricultural utilization of lignosulfonates
  8. Characterization of cellulose and TEMPO-oxidized celluloses prepared from Eucalyptus globulus
  9. Critical load for buckling of solid wood elements with a high slenderness ratio determined based on elastica theory
  10. Mapping the biotic degradation hazard of wood in Europe – biophysical background, engineering applications, and climate change-induced prospects
  11. Designing functional wood materials for novel engineering applications
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