Computational Metabolomics Tools Reveal Metabolic Reconfigurations Underlying the Effects of Biostimulant Seaweed Extracts on Maize Plants under Drought Stress Conditions

Abstract

Drought is one of the major abiotic stresses causing severe damage and losses in economically important crops worldwide. Drought decreases the plant water status, leading to a disruptive metabolic reprogramming that negatively affects plant growth and yield. Seaweed extract-based biostimulants show potential as a sustainable strategy for improved crop health and stress resilience. However, cellular, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms governing the agronomically observed benefits of the seaweed extracts on plants are still poorly understood. In this study, a liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry-based untargeted metabolomics approach combined with computational metabolomics strategies was applied to unravel the molecular ‘stamps’ that define the effects of seaweed extracts on greenhouse-grown maize (Zea mays) under drought conditions. We applied mass spectral networking, substructure discovery, chemometrics, and metabolic pathway analyses to mine and interpret the generated mass spectral data. The results showed that the application of seaweed extracts induced alterations in the different pathways of primary and secondary metabolism, such as phenylpropanoid, flavonoid biosynthesis, fatty acid metabolism, and amino acids pathways. These metabolic changes involved increasing levels of phenylalanine, tryptophan, coumaroylquinic acid, and linolenic acid metabolites. These metabolic alterations are known to define some of the various biochemical and physiological events that lead to enhanced drought resistance traits. The latter include root growth, alleviation of oxidative stress, improved water, and nutrient uptake. Moreover, this study demonstrates the use of molecular networking in annotating maize metabolome. Furthermore, the results reveal that seaweed extract-based biostimulants induced a remodeling of maize metabolism, subsequently readjusting the plant towards stress alleviation, for example, by increasing the plant height and diameter through foliar application. Such insights add to ongoing efforts in elucidating the modes of action of biostimulants, such as seaweed extracts. Altogether, our study contributes to the fundamental scientific knowledge that is necessary for the development of a biostimulants industry aiming for a sustainable food security.

Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Analyses Reveal That Fullerol Improves Drought Tolerance in Brassica napus L

“…The genes ADT4 / ADT5 , which are associated with the biosynthesis of phenylalanine, and the gene TSB2 , which is related to tryptophan biosynthesis, were down-regulated in B. napus subjected to drought. Although most studies pointed out that the accumulation of phenylalanine and tryptophan can be enhanced by water deficit [ 31 , 32 ], several studies showed opposite results, and agreed with our findings. Khan et al [ 33 ] reported that a decrease in phenylalanine level was found in chickpea exposed to drought.…”

Characterization of Corn Silk Extract Using HPLC/HRMS/MS Analyses and Bioinformatic Data Processing

“…Consequently, a cluster groups molecules with the same fragmentation pathway which should therefore belong to the same molecular family. A recent study on maize leaves used molecular networks to highlight the impact of biostimulants on the metabolism of maize plants under normal and drought conditions [ 38 ].…”

Molecular Networking-Guided Isolation of a Phenolic Constituent from Prunus mume Seed and Its Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Activities

“…GNPS-based molecular networking (MN) allows the organization and visualization of raw tandem MS/MS data sets and automatic searching for specialized metabolite using the database [ 31 ]. In addition, advanced data analysis tools, such as FBMN, NAP, MS2LDA, and MolNetEnhancer, enable us to access more exact chemical annotation, classification, and discoveries of substructure diversity [ 32 ]. Through these analysis tools, the chemical constituents contained in P. mume extracts were rapidly analyzed.…”