Streptomyces alleviate abiotic stress in plant by producing pteridic acids

Abstract

Soil microbiota can confer fitness advantages to plants and increase crop resilience to drought and other abiotic stressors. However, there is little evidence on the mechanisms correlating a microbial trait with plant abiotic stress tolerance. Here, we report that Streptomyces effectively alleviates the drought and salinity stress by producing spiroketal polyketide pteridic acid H (1) and its isomer F (2), both of which promote root growth in Arabidopsis at a concentration of 1.3 nM under abiotic stress. Pteridic acids induce stress response genes expression in salinity-stressed Arabidopsis seedlings. The bifunctional biosynthetic gene cluster of pteridic acids and antimicrobial elaiophylin is confirmed in vivo and mainly disseminated by vertical transmission which is geographically distributed in various environments. This discovery reveals a perspective for understanding plant-Streptomyces interactions and provides a promising approach for utilising beneficial Streptomyces and their secondary metabolites in agriculture to mitigate the detrimental effects of climate change.