Soil rhizospheric metaproteomics is a powerful scientific tool to uncover the interactions between plants and microorganisms in the soil ecosystem. The present study established an extraction method suitable for different soils that could increase the extracted protein content. Close to 1000 separate spots with high reproducibility could be identified in the stained 2-DE gels. Among the spots, 189 spots representing 122 proteins on a 2-DE gel of rice soil samples were successfully identified by MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS. These proteins mainly originated from rice and microorganisms. They were involved in protein, energy, nucleotide, and secondary metabolisms, as well as signal transduction and resistance. Three characteristics of the crop rhizospheric metaproteomics seemed apparent: (1) approximately one-third of the protein spots could not be identified by MALDI-TOF/TOF/MS, (2) the conservative proteins from plants formed a feature distribution of crop rhizospheric metaproteome, and (3) there were very complex interactions between plants and microorganisms existing in a crop rhizospheric soil. Further functional analysis on the identified proteins unveiled various metabolic pathways and signal transductions involved in the soil biotic community. This study provides a paradigm for metaproteomic research on soil biology.

Radix pseudostellariae L. is a common and popular Chinese medication. However, continuous monoculture has increased its susceptibility to severe diseases. We identified two pathogenic microorganisms, Talaromyces helicus M. (KU355274) and Kosakonia sacchari W. (KU324465), and their antagonistic bacterium, Bacillus pumilus Z. in rhizosphere soil of continuously monocultured R. pseudostellariae. Nine types of phenolic acids were identified both in the rhizosphere soil and in culture medium under sterile conditions. A syringic acid and phenolic acid mixture significantly promoted the growth of T. helicus and K. sacchari. T. helicus could utilize eight types of phenolic acids, whereas K. sacchari could only use four phenolic acids. K. sacchari produced protocatechuic acid when consuming vanillin. Protocatechuic acid negatively affected the growth of B. pumilus. The 3A-DON toxin produced by T. helicus promoted the growth of K. sacchari and inhibited growth of B. pumilus at low concentrations. These data help explain why phenolic exudates mediate a microflora shift and structure disorder in the rhizosphere soil of continuously monocultured R. pseudostellariae and lead to increased replanting disease incidence.

Gene expression of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) in allelopathic rice PI312777 was inhibited by RNA interference (RNAi). Transgenic rice showed lower levels of PAL gene expression and PAL activity than wild type rice (WT). The concentrations of phenolic compounds were lower in the root tissues and root exudates of transgenic rice than in those of wild type plants. When barndyardgrass (BYG) was used as the receiver plant, the allelopathic potential of transgenic rice was reduced. The sizes of the bacterial and fungal populations in rice rhizospheric soil at the 3-, 5-, and 7-leaf stages were estimated by using quantitative PCR (qPCR), which showed a decrease in both populations at all stages of leaf development analyzed. However, PI312777 had a larger microbial population than transgenic rice. In addition, in T-RFLP studies, 14 different groups of bacteria were detected in WT and only 6 were detected in transgenic rice. This indicates that there was less rhizospheric bacterial diversity associated with transgenic rice than with WT. These findings collectively suggest that PAL functions as a positive regulator of rice allelopathic potential.

In this study, quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) was used to determine the amount of Fusarium oxysporum, an important replant disease pathogen in Pseudostellaria heterophylla rhizospheric soil. Moreover, HPLC was used to identify phenolic acids in root exudates then it was further to explore the effects of the phenolic acid allelochemicals on the growth of F. oxysporum f.sp. heterophylla. The amount of F. oxysporum increased significantly in P. heterophylla rhizosphere soil under a consecutive replant system as monitored through qPCR analysis. Furthermore, the growth of F. oxysporum f.sp. heterophylla mycelium was enhanced by root exudates with a maximum increase of 23.8%. In addition, the number of spores increased to a maximum of 12.5-fold. Some phenolic acids promoted the growth of F. oxysporum f.sp. heterophylla mycelium and spore production. Our study revealed that phenolic acids in the root secretion of P. heterophylla increased long with its development, which was closely related to changes in rhizospheric microorganisms. The population of pathogenic microorganisms such as F. oxysporum in the rhizosphere soil of P. heterophylla also sharply increased. Our results on plant-microbe communication will help to better clarify the cause of problems associated with P. heterophylla under consecutive monoculture treatment.

The allelopathy-competition separation (ACS) based approach was used to explore the biointerference relationship between rice accessions and barnyardgrass exposed to different nitrogen (N) supplies in hydroponics. Rice accession PI312777 exhibited high allelopathic potential to suppress the growth of accompanying weeds, especially when the culture solution had low N content. The non-allelopathic rice Lemont showed an opposite result. Additionally, subtractive hybridization suppression (SSH) was used to construct a forward SSH-cDNA library of PI312777 to investigate gene expression profiles under low N treatment. A total of 35 positive clones from the SSH-cDNA library were sequenced and annotated. According to the function category, 24 genes were classified into five groups related to primary metabolism, phenolic allelochemical synthesis, plant growth/cell cycle regulation, stress response/signal transduction, and protein synthesis/degradation. Among them, two up-regulated genes that encode PAL and cytochrome P450 were selected. Their transcript abundance at low N level was compared further between the allelopathic rice and its counterpart by utilizing real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The transcription levels of the two genes increased in both rice accessions when exposed to low N supply, but PI312777 at a higher magnitude than Lemont. At 1, 3, and 7 days of the treatments, the corresponding relative expression levels of PAL were 11.38, 4.83, and 3.57 fold higher in PI312777 root, but there were 1.15, 2.74, and 2.94 fold increases for Lemont, compared with the control plants fed with regular nutrient. The same trend was found for cytochrome P450. These findings suggest that the stronger ability of PI312777 to suppress target weeds, especially in low N nutrient conditions, might be attributed to the stronger activation of the genes that function in de novo synthesis of allelochemicals.

Soil microbes play an essential role in the forest ecosystem as an active component. This study examined the hypothesis that soil microbial community structure and metabolic activity would vary with the increasing stand ages in long-term pure plantations of Pinus elliottii. The phospholipid fatty acids (PLFA) combined with community level physiological profiles (CLPP) method was used to assess these characteristics in the rhizospheric soils of P. elliottii. We found that the soil microbial communities were significantly different among different stand ages of P. elliottii plantations. The PLFA analysis indicated that the bacterial biomass was higher than the actinomycic and fungal biomass in all stand ages. However, the bacterial biomass decreased with the increasing stand ages, while the fungal biomass increased. The four maximum biomarker concentrations in rhizospheric soils of P. elliottii for all stand ages were 18:1ω9c, 16:1ω7c, 18:3ω6c (6,9,12) and cy19:0, representing measures of fungal and gram negative bacterial biomass. In addition, CLPP analysis revealed that the utilization rate of amino acids, polymers, phenolic acids, and carbohydrates of soil microbial community gradually decreased with increasing stand ages, though this pattern was not observed for carboxylic acids and amines. Microbial community diversity, as determined by the Simpson index, Shannon-Wiener index, Richness index and McIntosh index, significantly decreased as stand age increased. Overall, both the PLFA and CLPP illustrated that the long-term pure plantation pattern exacerbated the microecological imbalance previously described in the rhizospheric soils of P. elliottii, and markedly decreased the soil microbial community diversity and metabolic activity. Based on the correlation analysis, we concluded that the soil nutrient and C/N ratio most significantly contributed to the variation of soil microbial community structure and metabolic activity in different stand ages of P. elliottii plantations.

No abstract

No abstract