Snack Attack: Plant Chemical Responses to Herbivory and their Applications
Abstract:
Plants are under constant assault by a range of external and potentially destructive forces that threaten their existence. Thus, they have evolved fascinating and ingenious protective measures to enhance their survival and ability to reproduce. A subset of these are chemically based, and those that contain sulfur are some of the most fascinating. This is because the redox versatility of sulfur provides the opportunity under ambient conditions for formation of a range of labile molecules through a succession of reactions. At each stage in the reaction cascade, molecules containing different functional groups emerge, each exhibiting properties that can protect the plant in unique and specific ways. Our studies explore sulfur-based defense chemicals in plants, how they are generated, the ways in which they are deployed, and the methods that can be used to track them. Furthermore, these tracking approaches, particularly those that exploit ambient ionization mass spectrometric techniques, can be applied to solve problems in other areas of chemistry. Forensics identification of various compounds in complex matrices will be featured as examples.
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