A new glance at the chemosphere of macroalgal–bacterial interactions: In situ profiling of metabolites in symbiosis by mass spectrometry

• Marine Vallet,
• Filip Kaftan,
• Veit Grabe,
• Fatemeh Ghaderiardakani,
• Simona Fenizia,
• Aleš Svatoš,
• Georg Pohnert and
• Thomas Wichard

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2021, 17, 1313–1322, doi:10.3762/bjoc.17.91

• spectrometry (AP-SMALDI-HRMS), low-molecular-weight polar compounds were identified by comparative metabolomics in the chemosphere of Ulva. Choline (2-hydroxy-N,N,N-trimethylethan-1-aminium) was only determined in the alga grown under axenic conditions, whereas ectoine (1,4,5,6-tetrahydro-2-methyl-4

• -pyrimidinecarboxylic acid) was found in bacterial presence. Ectoine was used as a metabolic marker for localisation studies of Roseovarius sp. within the tripartite community because it was produced exclusively by these bacteria. By combining confocal laser scanning microscopy (cLSM) and AP-SMALDI-HRMS, we proved that

• Roseovarius sp. MS2 settled mainly in the rhizoidal zone (holdfast) of U. mutabilis. Our findings provide the fundament to decipher bacterial symbioses with multicellular hosts in aquatic ecosystems in an ecologically relevant context. As a versatile tool for microbiome research, the combined AP-SMALDI and