Cascading Effects of Root Microbial Symbiosis on the Development and Metabolome of the Insect Herbivore Manduca sexta L

Root mutualistic microbes can modulate the production of plant secondary metabolites affecting plant-herbivore interactions. Still, the main mechanisms underlying the impact of root mutualists on herbivore performance remain ambiguous. In particular, little is known about how changes in the plant me...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Metabolites 2021-10, Vol.11 (11), p.731
Main Authors: Papantoniou, Dimitra, Vergara, Fredd, Weinhold, Alexander, Quijano, Teresa, Khakimov, Bekzod, Pattison, David I, Bak, Søren, van Dam, Nicole M, Martínez-Medina, Ainhoa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
Amides
arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
Arbuscular mycorrhizas
Carnitine
Colonization
Developmental stages
Flavonoids
Flowers & plants
Fungi
Herbivores
Insects
LC–qToF–MS
Manduca sexta
Metabolites
Metabolomics
Metamorphosis
Morphology
Physiology
Rhizophagus irregularis
Secondary metabolites
Shoots
Solanum lycopersicum
Symbiosis
Trichoderma
Trichoderma harzianum
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Summary:Root mutualistic microbes can modulate the production of plant secondary metabolites affecting plant-herbivore interactions. Still, the main mechanisms underlying the impact of root mutualists on herbivore performance remain ambiguous. In particular, little is known about how changes in the plant metabolome induced by root mutualists affect the insect metabolome and post-larval development. By using bioassays with tomato plants ( ), we analyzed the impact of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus and the growth-promoting fungus on the plant interaction with the specialist insect herbivore . We found that root colonization by the mutualistic microbes impaired insect development, including metamorphosis. By using untargeted metabolomics, we found that root colonization by the mutualistic microbes altered the secondary metabolism of tomato shoots, leading to enhanced levels of steroidal glycoalkaloids. Untargeted metabolomics further revealed that root colonization by the mutualists affected the metabolome of the herbivore, leading to an enhanced accumulation of steroidal glycoalkaloids and altered patterns of fatty acid amides and carnitine-derived metabolites. Our results indicate that the changes in the shoot metabolome triggered by root mutualistic microbes can cascade up altering the metabolome of the insects feeding on the colonized plants, thus affecting the insect development.
ISSN:2218-1989
2218-1989
DOI:10.3390/metabo11110731