ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Nutrition
Soil factors enhance amino acid and peptide accumulation in tuberous roots of Pseudostellaria heterophylla
Provisionally accepted
Huiyong Zheng1Hong Chen1Meixia Zheng1Yuqing Niu1Jiajia Zhang1Wenbao Luo1Yujing Zhu1Hailan Su1
Yanming Zhu1,2*- 1Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Fuzhou, China
- 2Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhangzhou, China
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Pseudostellaria heterophylla (PSH) is a renowned medicinal and culinary plant. However, soil-related factors limiting in the improvement of its yield and quality in practice remain poorly understood. We sampled two PSH varieties and their associated rhizosphere soils from two sites in Ningde City, Fujian Province, China, including Chouling village (Z) and Wuyang village (W), to analyze the basic soil physicochemical properties, soil bacterial communities, and untargeted metabolomics of both soils and tuberous roots samples. Our results showed that the rhizosphere soil at site Z had significantly higher concentrations of calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), manganese (Mn), available phosphorus (AP), and available potassium (AK), but a lower concentration of alkaline hydrolyzable nitrogen (AN). Soil AN and AK were identified as key determinants of bacterial community structure, showing negative and positive correlation with numerous microbial phyla and genera, respectively. Site Z exhibited higher abundances of functional bacterial phyla, including Desulfobacterota, Nitrospirota, and Elusimicrobiota, as well as dominant genera of Acidobacteriota. Amino acids and peptides (AAs) were the most abundant class of differential metabolites (DMs) in both the rhizosphere soil and tuberous roots of PSH. The accumulation of AAs in tuberous roots was positively correlated with soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC), and potassium (K) levels, but negatively correlated with AN. Furthermore, specific microbial taxa and soil DMs at site Z were positively associated with AA abundance in the tuberous roots. These findings suggest that appropriate soil nitrogen levels coupled with relatively high potassium availability, pH, and EC conditions are conducive to AAs accumulation in PSH tuberous roots. Keywords: Pseudostellaria heterophylla; Rhizosphere soil; Bacterial community structure; Metabolome; Amino acids and peptides.
Keywords: Pseudostellaria heterophylla, rhizosphere soil, bacterial community structure, Metabolome, Amino acids and peptides
Received: 19 Oct 2025; Accepted: 12 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Chen, Zheng, Niu, Zhang, Luo, Zhu, Su and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yanming Zhu, zhuyanming@faas.cn
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