Pharmacologically active compounds (PACs) are becoming common pollutants in the natural environment, posing potential risks to crop quality; however, the toxic effects and metabolic changes that they cause in agricultural plants remain unclear. Here, we investigated the effects of ketoprofen on respiration rate, ATP synthesis, carbon and nitrogen metabolism, and metabolomics in rice seedling leaves. The results showed that ketoprofen treatment adversely affected the respiration rate, ATP content, H+-ATPase activity and induced changes in the contents of carbon assimilation products (soluble sugar, reducing sugar, sucrose, and starch) and the activities of key enzymes in carbon metabolism (sucrose synthase (SS), sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS), and sucrose invertase (InV)). The contents of nitrate, ammonium, and free amino acids, and the activities of key enzymes involved in nitrogen metabolism (nitrate reductase (NR), nitrite reductase (NiR), glutamine synthetase (GS), glutamate synthase (GOGAT), and glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH)) were also affected in a concentration-dependent manner. Metabolomics analysis showed that ketoprofen disturbed the type and content of metabolites (amino acids, carbohydrates, and secondary metabolites) to varying degrees and perturbed key metabolic pathways (substance synthesis and energy metabolism), ultimately resulting in the reduction of rice seedling biomass. This study provides important information and a useful reference for the accurate assessment of the environmental risks of PACs.
Keywords: ATP synthesis; Carbon metabolism; Ketoprofen; Metabolomics; Nitrogen metabolism; Oryza sativa L..
© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.