Pinpointing secondary metabolites that shape the composition and function of the plant microbiome

Abstract

One of the major questions in contemporary plant science involves determining the functional mechanisms that plants use to shape their microbiome. Plants produce a plethora of chemically diverse secondary metabolites, many of which exert bioactive functions on microorganisms. Several recent publications have unequivocally shown that plant secondary metabolites affect microbiome composition and function. These studies have pinpointed that the microbiome can be influenced by a diverse set of molecules, including: coumarins, glucosinolates, benzoxazinoids, camalexin and triterpenes. In this review, we summarise the role of secondary metabolites in shaping the plant microbiome, highlighting recent literature. A body of knowledge is now emerging that links specific plant metabolites with distinct microbial responses, mediated via defined biochemical mechanisms. There is significant potential to boost agricultural sustainability via the targeted enhancement of beneficial microbial traits, and here we argue that the recently discovered mechanistic links between root chemistry and microbiome composition could provide a new set of tools for rationally manipulating the plant microbiome.

Plant-derived benzoxazinoids act as antibiotics and shape bacterial communities

“…Recent studies have shown, however, that some plant specialized metabolites contribute to plant species-specific community profiles in the rhizosphere. For example, salicylic acid, camalexin, coumarins, and glucosinolates play an important role in shaping the Arabidopsis thaliana rhizosphere (Harbort et al, 2020;Jacoby et al, 2020;Koprivova et al, 2019;Lebeis et al, 2015;Stringlis et al, 2018;Voges et al, 2019).…”

Plant–Microbiome Crosstalk: Dawning from Composition and Assembly of Microbial Community to Improvement of Disease Resilience in Plants

“…[197]. The Agrobacterium-induced microbial community shift exerted beneficial effects to bean plants by increasing overall plant biomass, antioxidants, flavonoids, potassium content, and root nodules [197,198]. Moreover, co-inoculating the rhizospheres of tomato with Stenotrophomonas maltophilia and Pseudomonas stutzeri boosted the plant growth and stimulated the production of diffusible compounds (i.e., dimethyl disulphide), which are active against the foliar pathogen Botrytis cinerea [199].…”

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Maize (Zea mays L.) Root Growth and Its Potential Consequences for the Assembly of the Rhizosphere Microbiota

“…For practical applications, the aim must be to identify microbial consortia affecting specific plant traits (Vílchez et al, 2016;Oyserman et al, 2018), then strong and weak phenotypic responders among plant varieties could be identified by bulk segregant analysis, and resulting inbred lines after crossing a strong and weak responder cultivar can be used to identify plant molecular control points through quantitative trait loci (Quarrie et al, 1999;Phillips and Strong, 2003). Current plant microbiome studies are often still rather descriptive, but the tools are available to approach hypothesesdriven, targeted manipulations of plant microbiomes to improve plant breeding for a more sustainable agriculture (Wei and Jousset, 2017;Jacoby et al, 2021).…”