Metabolomics, a Powerful Tool for Understanding Plant Abiotic Stress

Patel

et al. 2021

IJMS

Metabolic regulation is the key mechanism implicated in plants maintaining cell osmotic potential under drought stress. Understanding drought stress tolerance in plants will have a significant impact on food security in the face of increasingly harsh climatic conditions. Plant primary and secondary metabolites and metabolic genes are key factors in drought tolerance through their involvement in diverse metabolic pathways. Physio-biochemical and molecular strategies involved in plant tolerance mechanisms could be exploited to increase plant survival under drought stress. This review summarizes the most updated findings on primary and secondary metabolites involved in drought stress. We also examine the application of useful metabolic genes and their molecular responses to drought tolerance in plants and discuss possible strategies to help plants to counteract unfavorable drought periods.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metabolomics and Molecular Approaches Reveal Drought Stress Tolerance in Plants

Patel

et al. 2021

IJMS

“…Plant stress regulation is a complex network, and it is difficult to fully analyze the responsive mechanisms of plants to stress by studying a single gene or metabolic pathway alone (Li et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2021). Metabolomics is a powerful tool to assess the whole change of organisms at the metabolite level (Alseekh et al, 2018) and also is essential for understanding the chemical signals during plant growth and development (Carrera et al, 2021). In the analysis of metabolomics, metabolites are small molecules that are formed and/or altered during metabolisms, and changes of metabolite profiles can establish a close relationship between genotype and phenotype and also reveal the plant-environment interaction comprehensively and systematically (Bernardo et al, 2019;Carrera et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metabolomics Analysis Reveals Drought Responses of Trifoliate Orange by Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi With a Focus on Terpenoid Profile

et al. 2021

Soil water deficit seriously affects crop production, and soil arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) enhance drought tolerance in crops by unclear mechanisms. Our study aimed to analyze changes in non-targeted metabolomics in roots of trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata) seedlings under well-watered and soil drought after inoculation with Rhizophagus intraradices, with a focus on terpenoid profile. Root mycorrhizal fungal colonization varied from 70% under soil drought to 85% under soil well-watered, and shoot and root biomass was increased by AMF inoculation, independent of soil water regimes. A total of 643 secondary metabolites in roots were examined, and 210 and 105 differential metabolites were regulated by mycorrhizal fungi under normal water and drought stress, along with 88 and 17 metabolites being up-and down-regulated under drought conditions, respectively. KEGG annotation analysis of differential metabolites showed 38 and 36 metabolic pathways by mycorrhizal inoculation under normal water and drought stress conditions, respectively. Among them, 33 metabolic pathways for mycorrhization under drought stress included purine metabolism, pyrimidine metabolism, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, etc. We also identified 10 terpenoid substances, namely albiflorin, artemisinin (−)-camphor, capsanthin, β-caryophyllene, limonin, phytol, roseoside, sweroside, and α-terpineol. AMF colonization triggered the decline of almost all differential terpenoids, except for β-caryophyllene, which was up-regulated by mycorrhizas under drought, suggesting potential increase in volatile organic compounds to initiate plant defense responses. This study provided an overview of AMF-induced metabolites and metabolic pathways in plants under drought, focusing on the terpenoid profile.

“…While much previous work has shown changes in the accumulation patterns of specialized or secondary metabolism in response to stress conditions (Carrera et al, 2021), in this study we intentionally chose to focus on the perturbations of primary metabolism caused by each abiotic stress in parallel. Our specific interest in primary metabolism is because these metabolic reactions underlying plant growth are ongoing prior to the onset of stress, they are then physically perturbed by abiotic stress conditions, but then must be reestablished for continued growth.…”

Section: Experimental Design Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several previous metabolomics studies analyzing plant abiotic stress responses have been reported in recent reviews (Carrera et al, 2021;Ghatak et al, 2018;Nephali et al, 2020) including heat, cold, freezing, water-deficit, and high light exposure. Still, little has been done to integrate these stress responses to create a uniform understanding of shared and specific metabolic stress responses that are combined to mount a unified response to multiple stressors as they often are encountered in nature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metabolic signatures of Arabidopsis thaliana abiotic stress responses elucidate patterns in stress priming, acclimation, and recovery

Freund

Hegeman

et al. 2022

Stress Biology

Temperature, water, and light are three abiotic stress factors that have major influences on plant growth, development, and reproduction. Plants can be primed by a prior mild stress to enhance their resistance to future stress. We used an untargeted metabolomics approach to examine Arabidopsis thaliana 11-day-old seedling’s abiotic stress responses including heat (with and without priming), cold (with and without priming), water-deficit and high-light before and after a 2-day-recovery period. Analysis of the physiological phenotypes showed that seedlings with stress treatment resulted in a reduction in fresh weight, hypocotyl and root length but remained viable. Several stress responsive metabolites were identified, confirmed with reference standards, quantified, and clustered. We identified shared and specific stress signatures for cold, heat, water-deficit, and high-light treatments. Central metabolism including amino acid metabolism, sugar metabolism, glycolysis, TCA cycle, GABA shunt, glutathione metabolism, purine metabolism, and urea cycle were found to undergo changes that are fundamentally different, although some shared commonalities in response to different treatments. Large increases in cysteine abundance and decreases in reduced glutathione were observed following multiple stress treatments highlighting the importance of oxidative stress as a general phenomenon in abiotic stress. Large fold increases in low-turnover amino acids and maltose demonstrate the critical role of protein and starch autolysis in early abiotic stress responses.