Compartment-dependent influence of sugarcane and soil on niche differentiation in metabolites, while silicon fertilizer mediates edaphic factors and sugarcane agronomic traits

Abstract As one of the vital crops globally, sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) has been one of model crops for conducting metabolome research. Although many studies have focused on understanding bioactive components in specific sugarcane tissues, crucial questions have been left unanswered about the response of niche differentiation of metabolites in different compartments of sugarcane (leaf, stem and root), and soil (rhizosphere and bulk) under silicon (Si) amended soils. In this study, nontargeted metabolite profiling method was leveraged to assess the similarities and differences in the abundance and community composition of metabolites in the different sugarcane and soil compartments. Identify the compartment-specific expression patterns of metabolites, and their association with cane agronomic traits and edaphic factors. We also investigated the response of sugarcane agronomic traits and edaphic factors to Si amended soil. We found that Si fertilizer exhibited the advantages of overwhelmingly promoting the height and theoretical production of cane, and profoundly increased soil Si content by 24.8% and 27.0%, while soil available potassium (AK) was enhanced by 3.07 and 2.67 folds in the bulk and rhizosphere soils, respectively. It was also noticed that available prosperous (AP) in the rhizosphere soil tremendously increased by 105.5%. We detected 339 metabolites in 30 samples using LC-MS/MS analyses, 161 of which were classified and annotated, including organooxygen compounds (19.9%), carboxylic acids and derivatives (15.5%), fatty acyls (15.5%), flavonoids (4.4%), phenols (4.4%), and benzene and substituted derivatives (3.7%). Multivariate ANOVA analysis revealed that the variations in metabolites abundance and community were compartment-dependent. We also observed that L-fucose and naringin and raffinose enrichment in the leaf and stem were unique to the Si treatment, respectively. Taken together, the results suggested that Si utilization can have a positive impact on edaphic factors and cane agronomic traits, and variations in metabolites community are tissue-dependent.