The Jatropha leaf curl Gujarat virus on infection in Jatropha regulates the sugar and tricarboxylic acid cycle metabolic pathways.

Jatropha, a popular biodiesel crop, suffers severe losses due to Jatropha leaf curl Gujarat virus (JLCuGV) infection in Gujarat (India). Metabolite profiling can help to understand the plant's innate immune response to geminivirus infection. Our study aims to compare metabolic profiles of an infected and healthy plant to unravel the changes in biochemical pathways on geminivirus infection in Jatropha. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis was performed in healthy and infected tissue of Jatropha field plants which were identified to be infected with geminivirus. GC-MS analysis revealed that the metabolites like sugars, polyols, carboxylic acids, fatty acids, polyphenols, and amino acids were regulated on JLCuGV infection. The sugars (glucose, sucrose, and fructose) increased, while carboxylic acids (malic acid, citric acid and quinic acid) and polyols (galactinol, butanetriol, triethylene glycol, myo-inositol, erythritol) decreased remarkably in infected Jatropha tissue. All these metabolic variations indicated that sugar metabolism and tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle pathways are regulated as a defense response and a disease development response to geminivirus infection in Jatropha. © King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.