Abstract
Gladiolus (Gladiolus grandiflora Hort.) plants are a perennial favorite, known for their beautiful flowers of many different colors. In this study, we determined metabolic differences between seven Gladiolus cultivars with differently colored flowers by monitoring anthocyanin, carotenoid, and hydrophilic metabolites. We detected nine anthocyanins in the seven cultivars. Only the 'Violetta' cultivar contained all nine anthocyanins and it exhibited the highest anthocyanin content, whereas no anthocyanins were detected in the 'New Wave' (white color) or 'Limoncello' (yellow color) cultivars. In addition, we detected seven carotenoids, the contents of which varied significantly among the cultivars depending on the flower color. 'Limoncello' exhibited the highest levels of carotenoids. Of the seven carotenoids, beta-carotene and lutein accumulated in the most cultivars. In addition, we identified 43 metabolites using gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The levels of organic acids and sugars in the 'New Wave' cultivar differed significantly from those in the 'Violetta' and 'Limoncello' cultivars with a P value < 0.01. Thus, our results may help in understanding the metabolic differences between differently colored Gladiolus cultivars and should be useful in future databases.