Ionic Liquids for Micro-Scale Extractions from Plants: From the Plant Genome to the Plant Metabolome

Plants are a rich source of a wide variety of bioactive primary and specialized metabolites whose synthesis depends on the interaction between the plant genome and the environment. Analyses in the plant field have therefore to cover a wide range of topics from genomics to metabolomics, often dealing with very complex matrices. The development of an appropriate sample preparation method is therefore fundamental to obtain the required information, since the isolation and preconcentration of the target analytes are often challenging, also because downstream analyses will detect only the metabolites previously extracted. Although most studies on plants still adopt conventional extraction methods, new materials with improved features in terms of tunability, selectivity and, very important, sustainability have been developed in the past decades. In this context, ionic liquids (ILs) are very promising for the plant field. One of the main features of ILs is their ability to incorporate functional groups, within the IL structure, that selectively interact with specific analytes, ranging from nucleic acids to target classes of specialized metabolites. Moreover, ILs can incorporate a paramagnetic element into their structure giving rise to the magnetic ionic liquids (MILs), that can be easily separated with an external magnetic field, in a very rapid process thus avoiding centrifugation and filtration steps. This presentation gives a rapid overview of the IL potential in the extraction of plant nucleic acids and specialized metabolites. In particular, the possibility to exploit MILs for very simple and fast extraction of genomic DNA from plants will be described [1] as well as the possibility to selectively extract specific sequences of plant DNA by ion-tagged oligonucleotides coupled with MILs [2]. At the same time, the adoption of IL-based surfactants will be discussed to show their potential for plant metabolomics investigations using the extraction of phenolic compounds from Vitis vinifera L. leaves as a case study [3]. References [1] A. Marengo, C. Cagliero, B. Sgorbini, J.L. Anderson, M.N. Emaus, C. Bicchi, C.M. Bertea, P. Rubiolo, Development of an innovative and sustainable one-step method for rapid plant DNA isolation for targeted PCR using magnetic ionic liquids, Plant Methods. 15 (2019) 1–11. [2] A. Marengo, M. N. Emaus, C. M. Bertea, C. Bicchi, P. Rubiolo, C. Cagliero, J. L. Anderson, Arabidopsis thaliana ITS sequence-specific DNA extraction by ion-tagged oligonucleotides coupled with a magnetic ionic liquid, Anal. Bioanal. Chem. 411 (2019) 6583-6590. [3] G. Mastellone, I. Pacheco-Fernández, P. Rubiolo, V. Pino, C. Cagliero, Sustainable Micro-Scale Extraction of Bioactive Phenolic Compounds from Vitis vinifera Leaves with Ionic Liquid-Based Surfactants, Molecules. 25 (2020) 3072.