Progeny of tobacco mosaic virus-infected Nicotiana tabacum plants exhibit trans-generational changes in metabolic profiles

Our previous work showed that infection of Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco) plants with tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) results in transgenerational changes in plant phenotype. To test whether the progeny of infected (PI) plants have changes in metabolites, we analyzed their metabolic profiles using NMR spectroscopy and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. Our results showed that PI plants had higher levels of various amino acids such as alanine, valine, serine, threonine, leucine and glutamine as well as various sugars, including sucrose, glucose and fructose. This work shows that viral infections can lead to trans-generational or heritable metabolic changes to plants.