The sweet potato (<i>Ipomoea batatas</i>) is a tuberous, root vegetable with origins most likely in Central or South America. Sweet potatoes are tropical, long season vegetables that grow best in long, hot summers where they can get over 100 days without frost. U.S. sweet potato production has increased substantially over the last 15 years. These plants can receive and interpret volatile signals in their environment. They can also emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that signal innate defense responses, allowing for communication between plants. One way to measure which volatile compounds sweet potato plants emit, as part of their plant-defense mechanism, is to use headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) as a sampling technique. SPME uses a fiber coated in an extraction phase—usually polymer or sorbent—to extract different analytes (volatile and non-volatile) from different substances. Depending on the concentration of the analyte in the sample, the SPME fiber will extract the analyte proportionally to that concentration. SPME has advantages in that it is cost-effective, solvent-independent, has ease of automation, and great potential for field applications. An 85-μm carboxen-polydimethylsiloxane fiber was used as sample preparation technique before the determination of the VOCs. Homogenized samples of the commercially available Beauregard and Averre sweet potato flesh and foliage, were sealed in a glass vial and left at both room temperature and in 40-degree Celsius water bath conditions for 24 hours. After extraction, the sample were analyzed via gas chromatograph (Agilent 7890B) coupled with a mass spectrometer (Agilent 5977A). The resulting data and chromatograms were processed with Agilent MassHunter software. The software performed a library search/match through the NIST chemical library with settings of 50% or greater certainty. Some of the compounds involved in plant defense detected by this analysis included terpenes and esters. Understanding the plant-defense expression of VOCs will have high utility future plant production and protection against herbivores. However, this data suggests that more research should be conducted to determine more specific physical and chemical contributors and barriers to host-plant resistance interactions.

Analysis and determination of plant defense chemicals in sweet potato (<i>Ipomoea batatas</i>) plants through solid-phase microextraction

ACS Fall 2021

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Analysis and determination of plant defense chemicals in sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) plants through solid-phase microextraction