Assessing the Metabolic Clutter in a Sugarcane-Sporisorium scitamineum Compatible Interaction from Early Infection to Whip Development

Higher plants can be described as integrated photosynthetic (source) and non-photosynthetic (sink) tissues systems. The relationship between them is a key point to carbon partitioning. Sugarcane represents a unique interaction between source-sink tissues, since it stores exceptionally high concentrations of sucrose. Sugarcane smut is one of the diseases that has most affected the culture, and is associated to a reduction in sugar content and juice quality. In this study, we determined changes in sugarcane metabolome in response to S. scitamineum colonization throughout disease progression - early infection to whip development - using GC-TOF-MS technique. We identified 73 sugarcane meristematic compounds, and each time point analyzed had a set of metabolites quantitatively altered by the smut infection (p-value < 0.05), indicating a disturbed normal source-sink dynamic. Most important changes were related to amino acids, energetic metabolism and cell wall synthesis. Metabolomics data altogether offered a whole picture of the process leading to whip formation and regarding carbon partitioning dynamics in sugarcane.