AUTHOR=Senizza Biancamaria , Araniti Fabrizio , Lewin Simon , Wende Sonja , Kolb Steffen , Lucini Luigi 

TITLE=Trichoderma spp.-mediated mitigation of heat, drought, and their combination on the Arabidopsis thaliana holobiont: a metabolomics and metabarcoding approach

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Plant Science

VOLUME=14

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2023.1190304

DOI=10.3389/fpls.2023.1190304

ISSN=1664-462X

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Introduction</title><p>The use of substances to increase productivity and resource use efficiency is now essential to face the challenge of feeding the rising global population with the less environmental impact on the ecosystems. <italic>Trichoderma</italic>-based products have been used as biopesticides, to inhibit pathogenic microorganisms, and as biostimulants for crop growth, nutrient uptake promotion, and resistance to abiotic stresses.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>In this work, plant metabolomics combined with roots and rhizosphere bacterial metabarcoding were exploited to inspect the performance of <italic>Trichoderma</italic> spp. biostimulants on <italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</italic> under drought, heat and their combination and its impact on plant holobiont.</p></sec><sec><title>Results and discussion</title><p>An overall modulation of N-containing compounds, phenylpropanoids, terpenes and hormones could be pointed out by metabolomics. Moreover, metabarcoding outlined an impact on alpha and beta-diversity with an abundance of <italic>Proteobacteria</italic>, <italic>Pseudomonadales</italic>, <italic>Burkholderiales</italic>, <italic>Enterobacteriales</italic> and <italic>Azospirillales</italic>. A holobiont approach was applied as an integrated analytical strategy to resolve the coordinated and complex dynamic interactions between the plant and its rhizosphere bacteria using <italic>Arabidopsis thaliana</italic> as a model host species.</p></sec>