Proteinogenic l-amino acids (l-AAs) are essential in all kingdoms as building blocks of proteins. Their d-enantiomers are also known to fulfill important functions in microbes, fungi, and animals, but information about these molecules in plants is still sparse. Previously, it was shown that d-amino acids (d-AAs) are taken up and utilized by plants, but their ways to reduce excessive amounts of them still remained unclear. Analyses of plant d-AA content after d-Ala and d-Glu feeding opened the question if exudation of d-AAs into the rhizosphere takes place and plays a role in the reduction of d-AA content in plants. The exudation of d-Ala and d-Glu could be confirmed by amino acid analyses of growth media from plants treated with these d-AAs. Further tests revealed that other d-AAs were also secreted. Nevertheless, treatments with d-Ala and d-Glu showed that plants are still able to reduce their contents within the plant without exudation. Further exudation experiments with transport inhibitors revealed that d-AA root exudation is rather passive and comparable to the secretion of l-AAs. Altogether, these observations argued against a dominant role of exudation in the regulation of plant d-AA content, but may influence the composition of the rhizosphere.
Keywords: ">d-amino acids; chiral LC-MS; molecular transport; plant-rhizosphere interactions; root exudation.