Title: Metabolic profiling platform for high throughput phenotyping and biomarker development

Project manager: Prof. Dr. A. Gierl (TUM-GE)

Project partners: Network Synbreed

Objective:
Building a GC_MS metabolic profiling platform for the analysis of metabolites from maize, chicken and cattle.

Summary:
The physiology of animals and plants is based on metabolism. A better understanding of regulation of primary and secondary metabolism is relevant to knowledge-based breeding. The analysis of the natural variation of metabolites in genetically segregating populations by high-resolution mapping is one way to gain insight into regulatory mechanisms. Once the genetic basis of metabolic changes is identified by QTL mapping, this knowledge can be used for breeding and for further biochemical analysis.
Within the technology platform T4 we intend to build an efficient GC_MS metabolic profiling platform for the analysis of metabolites from maize, chicken and cattle. Metabolic profiles are generated for many individuals, each containing many data points. This information content will be correlated with quantitative traits in order to use metabolites as biomarkers.