Metabolomic analysis of micromolecular biodiversity of the Atlantic Forest

Abstract

Brazil presents extraordinary biodiversity, containing important biomes such as Amazon Rainforest, Cerrado and Atlantic Forest. Atlantic Forest occurs in a large part of Brazil, and this biome is recognized as biodiversity hotspot, including more than 20,000 plant species. However, the biome has been under anthropic pressure since the colonial period, increasing by expansion of urban areas in the twentieth century. In consequence, the biome vegetation was suffered intense fragmentation. Acctually, more than 80% of the remaining Atlantic Forest consisting of isolated fragments with less than 50 ha. Forest fragments are susceptible to edge effects. Consequently, it was observed changes in vegetation composition and environments of fragments. Thus, metabolomic analyses of specimens from the human-modified and conserved areas of Atlantic Forest are important. Hyphenated techniques, such as High Performance Liquid Chromatography Coupled with Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-MS), allow the metabolic fingerprint of a large set of plant samples. In addition, the thousands of MS/MS spectra acquired can be subjected to computational tools to obtain molecular networking. The HPLC-MS data can be also analyzed by statistical tools to verify the distribution of secondary metabolites in different regions. Thus, metabolomic studies can help to knowledge the impact of human action on biodiversity of Atlantic Forest. (AU)