Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany
Christian Paetz
Research Group Biosynthesis / NMR, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany
Yuanyuan Song
Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany
Suhua Li
Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany
Junfu Dong
Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany; College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Sven Heiling
Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany
Karin Groten
Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany
High-through-put (HTP) screening for functional arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)-associations is challenging because roots must be excavated and colonization evaluated by transcript analysis or microscopy. Here we show that specific leaf-metabolites provide broadly applicable accurate proxies of these associations, suitable for HTP-screens. With a combination of untargeted and targeted metabolomics, we show that shoot accumulations of hydroxy- and carboxyblumenol C-glucosides mirror root AMF-colonization in Nicotiana attenuata plants. Genetic/pharmacologic manipulations indicate that these AMF-indicative foliar blumenols are synthesized and transported from roots to shoots. These blumenol-derived foliar markers, found in many di- and monocotyledonous crop and model plants (Solanum lycopersicum, Solanum tuberosum, Hordeum vulgare, Triticum aestivum, Medicago truncatula and Brachypodium distachyon), are not restricted to particular plant-AMF interactions, and are shown to be applicable for field-based QTL mapping of AMF-related genes.
