Dr.
Mark Polikovsky
(Department of Plant & Environmental Sciences. Weizmann Institute)
In the aquatic environment of Lemnaceae (duckweed), the mechanism for transporting hydrophobic bioactive signals through the aqueous medium remains a critical question. While bilayer extracellular vesicles (EVs) are established components in the plant apoplast, in this study, we identified a unique class of secretory nanoparticles (NPs) in duckweed exudate. Structural and omics profiling reveal that this distinct class of NPs represents not passive debris, but a dynamic metabolic hub enriched with lipid-trafficking proteins and enzymes associated with β-oxidation and the glyoxylate cycle. We demonstrate that the NPs’ cargo composition is associated with the jasmonate (JA) pathway. Notably, downregulating the JA-biosynthetic gene allene oxide cyclase (AOC) expands the chemical diversity within the NPs, enriching the cargo with bioactive lipids. These NPs sequester approximately 38% of the total exudate lipid diversity, specifically partitioning long-chain triacylglycerols (TAGs) and sphingolipids. Functionally, the duckweed-derived NPs facilitate inter-kingdom crosstalk by promoting the growth of beneficial duckweed-associated bacteria while inhibiting non-beneficial taxa. Together, these findings suggest that non-vesicular NPs are a specialized biochemical strategy for duckweed to target its microbiome and traffic lipids in a complex aquatic rhizosphere.
Keywords
Nanoparticles, Secondary metabolites, Rhizosphere
References
Acosta, K. et al. Return of the Lemnaceae: duckweed as a model plant system in the genomics and postgenomics era. Plant Cell vol. 33 Preprint at https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koab189 (2021).
Ishizawa, H. et al. Duckweed as an Emerging Model System for Plant–Microbiome Interactions. Environmental Microbiology vol. 27 Preprint at https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.70181 (2025).
Yu, L., Fan, J., Zhou, C. & Xu, C. Sterols are required for the coordinated assembly of lipid droplets in developing seeds. Nat. Commun. 12, (2021).
| Corresponding author email |
mark.polikovsky@weizmann.ac.il
|
Dr.
Mark Polikovsky
(Department of Plant & Environmental Sciences. Weizmann Institute)
Prof.
Asaph Aharoni
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Jelena Cveticanin
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Shlomy Arava
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Nir Shachaf
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Elinor Aviv-Sharon
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Breno San-Martin
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Himabindu Vasuki
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Julia-Eva Fortmueller
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Dong-Qi Li
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Inbar Cahana
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Lu Qian
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Madlena Ursu
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Ron Vunsh
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Priel Siman-Tov
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Efrat Weithorn
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Nadav Elad
(Department of Chemical Research Support, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Ziv Porat
(Life Sciences Core Facilities, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Gil Feiguelman
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Meital Kupervaser
(The De Botton Protein Profiling institute of the Nancy and Stephen Grand Israel National Center for Personalized Medicine, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Maxim Itkin
(Life Sciences Core Facilities, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Sergey Malitsky
(Life Sciences Core Facilities, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
Dr.
Ilana Rogachev
(Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel)
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