Metabolomic Insights Into Endophyte-Derived Bioactive Compounds

Abstract

Among the various plant-associated microbiota, endophytes (the microbial communities inhabiting plant endosphere without causing disease symptoms) exhibit the most intimate and specific association with host plants. Endophytic microbes influence various aspects of plant responses (such as increasing availability of nutrients, tolerance against biotic and abiotic stresses, etc.) by modulating the primary and secondary metabolism of the host. Besides, endophytic microbes produce a diverse array of bioactive compounds, which have potential applications in the pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries. Further, there is sufficient evidence for endophyte-derived plant metabolites, which could be pursued as alternative sources of commercially important plant metabolites. The field of bioprospecting, the discovery of novel chemistries, and endophyte-mediated production of plant metabolites have witnessed a boom with the advent of omics technologies (especially metabolomics) in endophyte research. The high throughput study of small metabolites at a particular timepoint or tissue forms the core of metabolomics. Being downstream to transcriptome and proteome, the metabolome provides the most direct reflection of the phenotype of an organism. The contribution of plant and microbial metabolomics for answering fundamental questions of plant-endophyte interaction, such as the effect of endophyte inoculation on plant metabolome, composition of metabolites on the impact of environmental stressors (biotic and abiotic), etc., have also been discussed.

The Multifunctions and Future Prospects of Endophytes and Their Metabolites in Plant Disease Management

“…Metabolomics are often classified into two groups: untargeted metabolomics, a comprehensive analysis of numerous known/unknown metabolites in the sample, and targeted metabolomics, the measurement of the specific metabolites in the sample [ 152 ]. Untargeted metabolomics can be performed to discover novel compounds, and targeted metabolomics is able to validate the results of untargeted metabolomics [ 153 ]. As described by Liu et al, the high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) based analysis showed that 88 secondary metabolites including 70 novel natural products were produced by Pestalotiopsis fici isolated from healthy Camellia sinensis (Theaceae) [ 154 ].…”

Comparison of the diversity and structure of the rhizosphere microbial community between the straight and twisted trunk types of Pinus yunnanensis

“…Microorganisms have been observed to enter host plants through roots and colonize plants (Chi et al, 2005;Thomas and Reddy, 2013). It has been reported that among the various plant-associated microbiota, endophytic microorganisms exhibit the most intimate and specific association with host plants (Vasileva et al, 2019;Mishra et al, 2022). There is growing evidence that the endophytic microorganisms support plants against both biotic and abiotic stresses (Ludwig-Muller, 2015;Sugio et al, 2015).…”

Secondary Metabolites Produced by Plant Growth-Promoting Bacterial Endophytes

“…Antimicrobial compounds may also be used as food preservatives among other biotechnological applications [ 13 ]. Furthermore, advances in chromatography and spectroscopy techniques have smoothened the path of rapid identification of known and unknown secondary metabolites [ 14 , 15 ].…”