Understanding metabolism of arginine in biological systems via MALDI imaging.

Arginine is an important amino acid but has been barely studied in plants. The little research that has been done indicates that the pathways of synthesis are similar to those found in animals and procaryotes. However little is known about the cellular and tissue localization of the amino acid in plants. The research reported in this paper was designed to examine whether MALDI-MSI was sufficiently sensitive to examine the distribution of this amino acid in plant material, and whether the synthetic pathways were co-located. In wheat and orchid roots, the amount of arginine in tissues varies greatly and the pathways for its synthesis were not always detected with the amino acid.