scholarly journals Plant Chemical Defenses: Are all Constitutive Antimicrobial Metabolites Phytoanticipins?

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1934578X1501000 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Soledade C. Pedras ◽  
Estifanos E. Yaya
Keyword(s):  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Chemical Defenses ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Plant Metabolites ◽  
Microbial Diseases ◽  
Fatty Acid Derivatives ◽  
Plant Chemical ◽  
Metabolic Products ◽  
Antimicrobial Metabolites ◽  
Chemical Groups

A critical perspective on phytoanticipins, constitutive plant secondary metabolites with defensive roles against microbes is presented. This mini-review focuses on the chemical groups and structural types of defensive plant metabolites thus far not reviewed from the phytoanticipin perspective: i) fatty acid derivatives and polyketides, ii) terpenoids, iii) shikimates, phenylpropanoids and derivatives, and iv) benzylisoquinoline and pyrrolizidine alkaloids. The more traditional groups of phytoanticipins are briefly summarized, with particular focus on the latest results: i) benzoxazinoids, ii) cyanogenic glycosides, iii) glucosinolates and their metabolic products, and iv) saponins. Current evidence suggests that a better understanding of the functions of plant metabolites will drive their application to protect crops against microbial diseases.

scholarly journals Target screening of plant secondary metabolites in river waters by liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC–HRMS)

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mulatu Yohannes Nanusha ◽  
Martin Krauss ◽  
Carina D. Schönsee ◽  
Barbara F. Günthardt ◽  
Thomas D. Bucheli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Surface Waters ◽  
High Resolution Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Biologically Active ◽  
Plant Metabolites ◽  
River Waters ◽  
Target Screening

Abstract Background Substantial efforts have been made to monitor potentially hazardous anthropogenic contaminants in surface waters while for plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) almost no data on occurrence in the water cycle are available. These metabolites enter river waters through various pathways such as leaching, surface run-off and rain sewers or input of litter from vegetation and might add to the biological activity of the chemical mixture. To reduce this data gap, we conducted a LC–HRMS target screening in river waters from two different catchments for 150 plant metabolites which were selected from a larger database considering their expected abundance in the vegetation, their potential mobility, persistence and toxicity in the water cycle and commercial availability of standards. Results The screening revealed the presence of 12 out of 150 possibly toxic PSMs including coumarins (bergapten, scopoletin, fraxidin, esculetin and psoralen), a flavonoid (formononetin) and alkaloids (lycorine and narciclasine). The compounds narciclasine and lycorine were detected at concentrations up to 3 µg/L while esculetin and fraxidin occurred at concentrations above 1 µg/L. Nine compounds occurred at concentrations above 0.1 µg/L, the Threshold for Toxicological Concern (TTC) for non-genotoxic and non-endocrine disrupting chemicals in drinking water. Conclusions Our study provides an overview of potentially biologically active PSMs in surface waters and recommends their consideration in monitoring and risk assessment of water resources. This is currently hampered by a lack of effect data including toxicity to aquatic organisms, endocrine disruption and genotoxicity and demands for involvement of these compounds in biotesting.

scholarly journals Cardenolides, toxicity, and the costs of sequestration in the coevolutionary interaction between monarchs and milkweeds

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (16) ◽  
pp. e2024463118
Author(s):  
Anurag A. Agrawal ◽  
Katalin Böröczky ◽  
Meena Haribal ◽  
Amy P. Hastings ◽  
Ronald A. White ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Danaus Plexippus ◽  
Monarch Butterfly ◽  
Chemical Defenses ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Asclepias Curassavica ◽  
Plant Chemical ◽  
Whole Plants ◽  
Benefits And Costs

For highly specialized insect herbivores, plant chemical defenses are often co-opted as cues for oviposition and sequestration. In such interactions, can plants evolve novel defenses, pushing herbivores to trade off benefits of specialization with costs of coping with toxins? We tested how variation in milkweed toxins (cardenolides) impacted monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) growth, sequestration, and oviposition when consuming tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica), one of two critical host plants worldwide. The most abundant leaf toxin, highly apolar and thiazolidine ring–containing voruscharin, accounted for 40% of leaf cardenolides, negatively predicted caterpillar growth, and was not sequestered. Using whole plants and purified voruscharin, we show that monarch caterpillars convert voruscharin to calotropin and calactin in vivo, imposing a burden on growth. As shown by in vitro experiments, this conversion is facilitated by temperature and alkaline pH. We next employed toxin-target site experiments with isolated cardenolides and the monarch’s neural Na+/K+-ATPase, revealing that voruscharin is highly inhibitory compared with several standards and sequestered cardenolides. The monarch’s typical >50-fold enhanced resistance to cardenolides compared with sensitive animals was absent for voruscharin, suggesting highly specific plant defense. Finally, oviposition was greatest on intermediate cardenolide plants, supporting the notion of a trade-off between benefits and costs of sequestration for this highly specialized herbivore. There is apparently ample opportunity for continued coevolution between monarchs and milkweeds, although the diffuse nature of the interaction, due to migration and interaction with multiple milkweeds, may limit the ability of monarchs to counteradapt.

scholarly journals The Health Promoting Bioactivities of Lactuca sativa can be Enhanced by Genetic Modulation of Plant Secondary Metabolites

Metabolites ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hammad Ismail ◽  
Anna L. Gillespie ◽  
Danielle Calderwood ◽  
Haroon Iqbal ◽  
Colene Gallagher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Lactuca Sativa ◽  
Genetic Manipulation ◽  
Sesquiterpene Lactones ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Rol Genes ◽  
In Vitro Bioactivity ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Plant Metabolites

Plant secondary metabolites are protective dietary constituents and rol genes evidently increase the synthesis of these versatile phytochemicals. This study subjected a globally important vegetable, lettuce (Lactuca sativa) to a combination of untargeted metabolomics (LC-QTof-MS) and in vitro bioactivity assays. Specifically, we examined the differences between untransformed cultured lettuce (UnT), lettuce transformed with either rolABC (RA) or rolC (RC) and commercially grown (COM) lettuce. Of the 5333 metabolite features aligned, deconvoluted and quantified 3637, 1792 and 3737 significantly differed in RA, RC and COM, respectively, compared with UnT. In all cases the number of downregulated metabolites exceeded the number increased. In vitro bioactivity assays showed that RA and RC (but not COM) significantly improved the ability of L. sativa to inhibit α-glucosidase, inhibit dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) and stimulate GLP-1 secretion. We putatively identified 76 lettuce metabolites (sesquiterpene lactones, non-phenolic and phenolic compounds) some of which were altered by several thousand percent in RA and RC. Ferulic acid levels increased 3033–9777%, aminooxononanoic acid increased 1141–1803% and 2,3,5,4′tetrahydroxystilbene-2-O-β-d-glucoside increased 40,272–48,008%. Compound activities were confirmed using commercially obtained standards. In conclusion, rol gene transformation significantly alters the metabolome of L.sativa and enhances its antidiabetic properties. There is considerable potential to exploit rol genes to modulate secondary metabolite production for the development of novel functional foods. This investigation serves as a new paradigm whereby genetic manipulation, metabolomic analysis and bioactivity techniques can be combined to enable the discovery of novel natural bioactives and determine the functional significance of plant metabolites.

scholarly journals The Gut Microbiota in Camellia Weevils Are Influenced by Plant Secondary Metabolites and Contribute to Saponin Degradation

mSystems ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shouke Zhang ◽  
Jinping Shu ◽  
Huaijun Xue ◽  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Yabo Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Bacterial Communities ◽  
Insect Pest ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Sole Source ◽  
Chemical Defenses ◽  
Plant Interactions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Tea Saponin

ABSTRACT The camellia weevil (CW [Curculio chinensis]) is a notorious host-specific predator of the seeds of Camellia species in China, causing seed losses of up to 60%. The weevil is capable of overcoming host tree chemical defenses, while the mechanisms of how these beetles contend with the toxic compounds are still unknown. Here, we examined the interaction between the gut microbes of CW and camellia seed chemistry and found that beetle-associated bacterial symbionts mediate tea saponin degradation. We demonstrate that the gut microbial community profile of CW was significantly plant associated, and the gut bacterial community associated with CW feeding on Camellia oleifera seeds is enriched with genes involved in tea saponin degradation compared with those feeding on Camellia sinensis and Camellia reticulata seeds. Twenty-seven bacteria from the genera Enterobacter, Serratia, Acinetobacter, and Micrococcus subsisted on tea saponin as a sole source of carbon and nitrogen, and Acinetobacter species are identified as being involved in the degradation of tea saponin. Our results provide the first metagenome of gut bacterial communities associated with a specialist insect pest of Camellia trees, and the results are consistent with a potential microbial contribution to the detoxification of tree-defensive chemicals. IMPORTANCE The gut microbiome may play an important role in insect-plant interactions mediated by plant secondary metabolites, but the microbial communities and functions of toxic plant feeders are still poorly characterized. In the present study, we provide the first metagenome of gut bacterial communities associated with a specialist weevil feeding on saponin-rich and saponin-low camellia seeds, and the results reveal the correlation between bacterial diversity and plant allelochemicals. We also used cultured microbes to establish their saponin-degradative capacity outside the insect. Our results provide new experimental context to better understand how gut microbial communities are influenced by plant secondary metabolites and how the resistance mechanisms involving microbes have evolved to deal with the chemical defenses of plants.

scholarly journals Differential Impact of Plant Secondary Metabolites on the Soil Microbiota

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vadim Schütz ◽  
Katharina Frindte ◽  
Jiaxin Cui ◽  
Pengfan Zhang ◽  
Stéphane Hacquard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Relative Abundance ◽  
Soil Bacteria ◽  
Phospholipid Fatty Acid ◽  
Microbial Community Composition ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Sequence Variant ◽  
Plant Metabolites ◽  
Isolation And Characterization ◽  
Mutual Adaptation

Plant metabolites can shape the microbial community composition in the soil. Two indole metabolites, benzoxazolinone (BOA) and gramine, produced by different Gramineae species, and quercetin, a flavonoid synthesized by many dicot species, were studied for their impacts on the community structure of field soil bacteria. The three plant metabolites were directly added to agricultural soil over a period of 28 days. Alterations in bacterial composition were monitored by next generation sequencing of 16S rRNA gene PCR products and phospholipid fatty acid analysis. Treatment of the soil with the plant metabolites altered the community composition from phylum to amplicon sequence variant (ASV) level. Alpha diversity was significantly reduced by BOA or quercetin, but not by gramine. BOA treatment caused a decrease of the relative abundance of 11 ASVs, while only 10 ASVs were increased. Gramine or quercetin treatment resulted in the increase in relative abundance of many more ASVs (33 or 38, respectively), most of them belonging to the Proteobacteria. Isolation and characterization of cultivable bacteria indicated an enrichment in Pseudarthrobacter or Pseudomonas strains under BOA/quercetin or BOA/gramine treatments, respectively. Therefore, the effects of the treatments on soil bacteria were characteristic for each metabolite, with BOA exerting a predominantly inhibitory effect, with only few genera being able to proliferate, while gramine and quercetin caused the proliferation of many potentially beneficial strains. As a consequence, BOA or gramine biosynthesis, which have evolved in different barley species, is accompanied with the association of distinct bacterial communities in the soil, presumably after mutual adaptation during evolution.

scholarly journals Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture: The Most Flexible Foundations for Plant Metabolic Engineering Applications

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 1934578X1501000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinjiro Ogita
Keyword(s):  
Metabolic Engineering ◽  
Organ Culture ◽  
Plant Cell ◽  
Plant Secondary Metabolites ◽  
Plant Metabolites ◽  
Combination Strategy ◽  
Cell Tissue ◽  
Tissue And Organ Culture ◽  
Flexible Foundations ◽  
Made In

Significant advances in plant cell, tissue and organ culture (PCTOC) have been made in the last five decades. PCTOC is now thought to be the underlying technique for understanding general or specific biological functions of the plant kingdom, and it is one of the most flexible foundations for morphological, physiological and molecular biological applications of plants. Furthermore, the recent advances in the field of information technology (IT) have enabled access to a large amount of information regarding all aspects of plant biology. For example, sequencing information is stored in mega repositories such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), which can be easily accessed by researchers worldwide. To date, the PCTOC and IT combination strategy for regulation of target plant metabolism and the utilization of bioactive plant metabolites for commercial purposes is essential. In this review, the advantages and the limitations of these methodologies, especially regarding the production of bioactive plant secondary metabolites and metabolic engineering in target plants are discussed mainly from the phenotypic view point.

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