{"doi":"10.1093/gigascience/giaa096","title":"3D Imaging and metabolomic profiling reveal higher neuroactive kavalactone contents in lateral roots and crown root peels of <i>Piper methysticum</i> (kava)","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Kava is an important neuroactive medicinal plant. While kava has a large global consumer footprint for its clinical and recreational use, factors related to its use lack standardization and the tissue-specific metabolite profile of its neuroactive constituents is not well understood. RESULTS: Here we characterized the metabolomic profile and spatio-temporal characteristics of tissues from the roots and stems using cross-platform metabolomics and a 3D imaging approach. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry revealed the highest content of kavalactones in crown root peels and lateral roots. Infrared matrix-assisted laser desorption electrospray ionization (IR-MALDESI) imaging revealed a unique tissue-specific presence of each target kavalactone. X-ray micro-computed tomography analysis demonstrated that lateral roots have morphological characteristics suitable for synthesis of the highest content of kavalactones. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide mechanistic insights into the social and clinical practice of the use of only peeled roots by linking specific tissue characteristics to concentrations of neuroactive compounds.","journal":"GigaScience","year":2020,"id":88483,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":10,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9237,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":448804,"name":"Aaron Yerke","orcid":"0000-0002-8297-5818","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448805,"name":"M. Caleb Bagley","orcid":"0000-0001-8792-6057","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":450034,"name":"Måns Ekelöf","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448806,"name":"Daniel L. Weber","orcid":"0000-0002-8315-566X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448807,"name":"Daniel Haddad","orcid":"0000-0002-8999-1343","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":29081,"name":"Anthony A. Fodor","orcid":"0000-0002-9305-4264","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448808,"name":"David C. Muddiman","orcid":"0000-0003-2216-499X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448809,"name":"Leonard Williams","orcid":"0000-0003-0886-5204","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":448803,"name":"Yogini Jaiswal","orcid":"0000-0002-3869-5288","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:01:22.387926Z","pmid":"32960942","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}