Biostimulant Effects of Chaetomium globosum and Minimedusa polyspora Culture Filtrates on Cichorium intybus Plant: Growth Performance and Metabolomic Traits

Veronica Spinelli; Elisa Brasili; Fabio Sciubba; Andrea Ceci; Ottavia Giampaoli; Alfredo Miccheli; Gabriella Pasqua; Anna Maria Persiani

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.879076

Biostimulant Effects of Chaetomium globosum and Minimedusa polyspora Culture Filtrates on Cichorium intybus Plant: Growth Performance and Metabolomic Traits

Front Plant Sci. 2022 May 12:13:879076. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.879076. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Veronica Spinelli¹, Elisa Brasili^{1

2}, Fabio Sciubba^{1

2}, Andrea Ceci¹, Ottavia Giampaoli^{1

2}, Alfredo Miccheli^{1

2}, Gabriella Pasqua^{1

2}, Anna Maria Persiani¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
² NMR-Based Metabolomics Laboratory (NMLab), Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the biostimulant effect of fungal culture filtrates obtained from Chaetomium globosum and Minimedusa polyspora on growth performance and metabolomic traits of chicory (Cichorium intybus) plants. For the first time, we showed that M. polyspora culture filtrate exerts a direct plant growth-promoting effect through an increase of biomass, both in shoots and roots, and of the leaf area. Conversely, no significant effect on morphological traits and biomass yield was observed in C. intybus plants treated with C. globosum culture filtrate. Based on ¹H-NMR metabolomics data, differential metabolites and their related metabolic pathways were highlighted. The treatment with C. globosum and M. polyspora culture filtrates stimulated a common response in C. intybus roots involving the synthesis of 3-OH-butyrate through the decrease in the synthesis of fatty acids and sterols, as a mechanism balancing the NADPH/NADP⁺ ratio. The fungal culture filtrates differently triggered the phenylpropanoid pathway in C. intybus plants: C. globosum culture filtrate increased phenylalanine and chicoric acid in the roots, whereas M. polyspora culture filtrate stimulated an increase of 4-OH-benzoate. Chicoric acid, whose biosynthetic pathway in the chicory plant is putative and still not well known, is a very promising natural compound playing an important role in plant defense. On the contrary, benzoic acids serve as precursors for a wide variety of essential compounds playing crucial roles in plant fitness and defense response activation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that shows the biostimulant effect of C. globosum and M. polyspora culture filtrates on C. intybus growth and metabolome, increasing the knowledge on fungal bioresources for the development of biostimulants.

Keywords: 1H-NMR based metabolomics; Chaetomium globosum; Cichorium intybus; Minimedusa polyspora; biostimulants; fungal culture filtrates; fungi; plant growth promotion.