Preliminary study on the effect of endogeic earthworm on metabolic changes of blood-disease-infected banana

Abstract

Metabolic changes in plants may serve as an early signal for infection in response to pathogen intrusions. In this study, metabolomic fingerprinting analysis was conducted on banana plantlets inoculated with endogeic earthworms and blood disease bacterium (BDB). It was found that infected stems and roots exhibited the lower metabolic intensities than uninfected ones. Principle component analysis (PCA) showed a clear discrimination between the ¹H NMR spectra of banana roots infected with BDB and with the presence of earthworms. Earthworms were found to induce the host plants to produce compounds that were associated to disease resistance. This indicated that earthworms led to the alteration of metabolic reactions in the host plants in response to BDB infection. Future attempts that determine the relationship between the presence of earthworms and the production of key compounds that are responsible for plant defence mechanisms are important to explore the potential role of earthworms in disease remediation.

Keywords:

• Banana
• blood disease bacterium (BDB)
• earthworm
• 1H NMR
• Pontoscolex corethrurus

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mr. Salahudin bin Mohd Raof of Institute of Bioscience (IBS), UPM for his assistance in the NMR laboratory.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by UPM Research Grant (GP/2017/9568300).