Fig. 2: Metabolisation of benzoxazinoids and use as sole carbon source by maize root bacteria.

a, b Heatmaps displaying qualitative detection of MBOA, DIMBOA-Glc and their metabolisation products for 46 maize root bacteria. Detected compounds and classifications are indicated in the legend. The corresponding metabolite analyses and classification cut-offs are shown in Supplementary Fig. 5. a–c Strains were grown in liquid 50% TSB supplemented with 500 µM of the respective chemical. “No bacteria control” NBC only contains the medium supplemented with the respective chemicals. a Detection of MBOA and its metabolisation products AMPO and AAMPO and b DIMBOA-Glc and its metabolisation products MBOA, AMPO and AAMPO. c Time course of MBOA metabolisation to AMPO and AAMPO for selected single strains: strong AMPO-formers Sphingobium LSP13, Pseudoarthrobacter LMD1, Microbacterium LMB2, Enterobacter LME3; weak AMPO-formers Acinetobacter LAC11 and Rhizobium LRC7.O; non-AMPO-formers Pseudomonas LMX9, Bacillus LBA112 and Microbacterium LMI1x. Metabolite measurements (n = 1) were made on pools of three independently grown cultures (#: sample with failed pooling). d Bacterial growth within 68 h (reported as the area under the growth curve, AUC) for selected strains in minimal medium supplemented with DMSO (negative control), glucose (positive control), MBOA and DIMBOA-Glc each in two concentrations (500 µM or 2500 µM). Means ± standard error and individual data points are shown (n = 5). Growth curves are available in Supplementary Fig. 6. Asterisks indicate significant differences between treatment and DMSO control (pairwise t-test, P < 0.05).