The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Abiotic Stress
Volume 15 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1430752
This article is part of the Research Topic Essence of Survival: Impact of Primary and Secondary Metabolism on Plant Acclimation to Abiotic Stress View all articles
Diethyl aminoethyl hexanoate reprogramed accumulations of organic metabolites associated with water balance and metabolic homeostasis in white clover under drought stress
Provisionally accepted
Muhammad J. Hassan
1
Atiqa Najeeb
1*
Zhou Min
1
Muhammad A. Raza
2
Ummar Ali
1*
Zhou Li
1*
Bizhen Cheng
1*- 1 Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
- 2 Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
Diethyl aminoethyl hexanoate (DA-6) serving as a non-toxic and low-cost plant growth regulator is used for improving plant growth and stress tolerance, but the DA-6-mediated organic metabolites remodeling in relation to drought tolerance not well documented in crops. The aims of the present study were to evaluate impacts of DA-6 on physiological functions including osmotic adjustment, photochemical efficiency, oxidative damage, and cell membrane stability as well as organic metabolites remodeling in white clover (Trifolium repens) leaves based on the analysis of metabolomics. Plants were foliar treated with or without DA-6 and subsequently exposed to drought stress for 8 days. Results demonstrated that foliar application of DA-6 (1.5 mM) could significantly ameliorate drought tolerance, which was linked with better leaf water status, photosynthetic performance, and cell membrane stability as well as lower oxidative injury in leaves. Metabolic profiling of organic metabolites identified a total of 59 metabolites including 17 organic acids, 20 sugars, 12 alcohols, and 10 other metabolites. In response to drought stress, the DA-6 induced accumulations of many sugars and sugar alcohols (erythrulose, arabinose, xylose, inosose, galactose, talopyranose, fucose, erythritol, and ribitol), organic acids (propanoic acid, 2,3dihydroxybutanoic acid, palmitic acid, linolenic acid, and galacturonic acid), and other metabolites (2-oxazoline, silane, and glycine) in white clover. These altered metabolites induced by the DA-6 could perform critical functions in maintenances of osmo-protection, osmotic adjustment, redox homeostasis, cell wall structure and membrane stability when white clover suffered from water deficit. In addition, the campesterol and stigmasterol significantly accumulated in all plants in spite of the DA-6 pretreatment under drought stress, which could be an important adaptive response to water deficit due to beneficial roles of those two metabolites in regulating cell membrane stability and antioxidant defense. Present findings provide new evidence of DA-6-regulated metabolic homeostasis contributing to drought tolerance in leguminous plants.
Keywords: water deficit, Metabolomics, Organic acids, Sugars, Physiological function, photosynthetic performance
Received: 10 May 2024; Accepted: 23 Sep 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Hassan, Najeeb, Min, Raza, Ali, Li and Cheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Atiqa Najeeb, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
Ummar Ali, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
Zhou Li, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
Bizhen Cheng, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya'an, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.