The variation of root exudates from the hyperaccumulator Sedum alfredii under cadmium stress: metabonomics analysis

Hydroponic experiments were conducted to investigate the variation of root exudates from the hyperaccumulator Sedum alfredii under the stress of cadmium (Cd). S. alfredii was cultured for 4 days in the nutrient solution spiked with CdCl2 at concentrations of 0, 5, 10, 40, and 400 µM Cd after the pre-culture. The root exudates were collected and analyzed by GC-MS, and 62 compounds were identified. Of these compounds, the orthogonal partial least-squares discrimination analysis (OPLS-DA) showed that there were a distinct difference among the root exudates with different Cd treatments and 20 compounds resulting in this difference were found out. Changing tendencies in the relative content of these 20 compounds under the different Cd treatments were analyzed. These results indicated that trehalose, erythritol, naphthalene, d-pinitol and n-octacosane might be closely related to the Cd stabilization, phosphoric acid, tetradecanoic acid, oxalic acid, threonic acid and glycine could be attributed to the Cd mobilization, and mannitol, oleic acid, 3-hydroxybutanoic acid, fructose, octacosanol and ribitol could copy well with the Cd stress.