Abstract
The metabolite profiles of two plant growth promoting cyanobacteria—Anabaena laxa and Calothrix elenkinii, which serve as promising biofertilizers, and biocontrol agents were generated to investigate their agriculturally beneficial activities. Preliminary biochemical analyses, in terms of total chlorophyll, total proteins, and IAA were highest at 14 days after inoculation (DAI). In A. laxa 20–25% higher values of reducing sugars, than C. elenkinii at both 14 and 21 DAI were recorded. Carbon and nitrogen assimilating enzyme activities—phosphoenol pyruvate carboxylase (PEPC), carbonic anhydrase (CA), and glutamine synthetase (GS) were highest at 14 DAI, albeit, nitrate reductase (NR) activity was higher by 0.73–0.84-fold at 21 DAI. Untargeted GC–MS (Gas chromatography–Mass spectrometric) analysis of metabolite profiles of 21d-old cyanobacterial cultures and characterization using NIST mass spectral library illustrated that A. laxa recorded highest number of metabolite hits in three chemical classes namely amino acid and peptides, nucleotides, nucleosides and analogues, besides other organic compounds. Based on the pathway analysis of identified metabolites, both A. laxa, and C. elenkinii were enriched in metabolites involved in aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, and amino acid metabolism pathways, particularly lactose and glutamic acid, which are important players in plant–microbe interactions. Correlation-based metabolite network illustrated distinct and significant differences in the metabolic machinery of A. laxa and C. elenkinii, highlighting their novel identity and enrichment in C–N rich metabolites, as factors underlying their plant growth and soil fertility enhancing attributes, which make them valuable as inoculants.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to the Division of Microbiology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi for the necessary facilities, and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi for providing the DST-INSPIRE Fellowship (IF180455) to SN. The authors also acknowledge the Metabolomics Facility, NIPGR, and DBT grant (no. BT/INF/22/SP28268/2018) for funds towards the maintenance of GC/MS facility. SN is also grateful to Dr. Shobana Narayanasamy, Research Associate, Biocatalysts Laboratory, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, India for her guidance in correlation-based network analysis using Metscape application visualised using Cytoscape version 3.9.1. The authors are also thankful for receiving partial financial support from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) through the Network Project on Microorganisms “Application of Microorganisms in Agricultural and Allied Sectors” (AMAAS). The authors thank Dr. Lata Nain for her kind help in undertaking the language and scientific editing of the manuscript.
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Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi is thanked for providing the DST-INSPIRE Fellowship (IF180455) to SN, and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) for providing partial funds through the Network Project on Microorganisms “Application of Microorganisms in Agricultural and Allied Sectors” (AMAAS) to RP towards the analyses.
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NS: Conceptualization, Methodology, Experimentation, Investigation, Formal analysis, Writing-Original draft; VK: Experimentation, Investigation, Formal Analysis; RP: Methodology, Resources, Supervision, Formal analysis, Writing- Original draft, Review & Editing.
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Nishanth, S., Kokila, V. & Prasanna, R. Metabolite profiling of plant growth promoting cyanobacteria—Anabaena laxa and Calothrix elenkinii, using untargeted metabolomics. 3 Biotech 14, 35 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-023-03902-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-023-03902-7