This study compared the molecular data obtained by MALDI profiling of 20 tropical grasses. Biomolecules were extracted from leaves of each species/cultivars. Then, protein-enriched supernatants were analyzed by MALDI-TOF MS under linear mode at m/z 2000–20,000 to generate a main spectrum profile (MSP) for each sample stored as an in-house database. Several molecular components were detected in the samples, mostly below m/z 12,000 and particularly ranging from m/z 3000 to 6000 some of which species- and even cultivar-specific or at least distinguishable by signal intensities. Dendrogram analysis clearly showed three major clades which recapitulated not only phylogenetic relationships similar to those obtained from morphological and genomics data, but also other relevant inferences. The practical use of the method was validated and the high scores obtained proved it can be valuable not only to discriminate grasses, but future studies can apply the method in the evaluation of biotic and abiotic factors, diagnosis of diseases and pathogens, development of products towards weeds control, and evaluation of nutritional value of pastures and forages.

这项研究比较了通过MALDI分析20种热带草获得的分子数据。从每个物种/品种的叶片中提取生物分子。然后，通过MALDI-TOF MS在线性模式下以m / z 2000–20,000对富蛋白上清液进行分析，以生成作为内部数据库存储的每个样品的主光谱图（MSP）。在样品中检测到几种分子成分，大多数低于m / z 12,000，特别是m / z 3000至6000，其中一些是物种甚至品种特异的，或者至少可以通过信号强度区分。树状图分析清楚地显示了三个主要进化枝，它们不仅概括了与从形态学和基因组学数据获得的相似的系统发育关系，而且还概括了其他相关推论。