Metabolomics studies of allelopathy: a review

Introduction: Allelopathy is a harmful effect indirectly or directly produced by one plant to another through the production of chemical substances that enter the environment. Allelopathy has a pertinent significance for systems of ecological, sustainable, and integrated management. These natural reactions have multiple effects, ranging from processes of inhibition and stimulation of growth in neighbor plants to inhibition of seed germination. Metabolomics is a discipline integral that studies all the metabolites in a particular tissue, organ, or organism in a specific developmental stage or under particular environmental conditions, and it allows for the assessment of the contribution of genetic and environmental factors to the modification of metabolism. With the growing number of “omics”, new approaches can be used to understand metabolic changes that occur in plants, especially in proteomics and metabolomics, and thus those analyses could be profiled in coming years with the objective of knowing the allelopathome of a larger number of plant species and their interactions. Aim: To provide a recent update on the science of allelopathy in the context of physiology, practical application of metabolomics in allelopathic studies, allelochemicals analyzed by metabolomics in alfalfa, rice, canola, sorghum, rye, wheat and other crops and finally mentionated the biological activity of allelopathic secondary metabolites. Methods: A recent comprehensive literature search of allelopathy and metabolomics in journal databases was carried out. Results: The concept of allelopathy, allelopathic mechanisms, metabolomic studies in allelopathy, allelochemicals analysed by metabolomics in alfalfa, rice, canola, rye sorghum, wheat and other agro-industrially important crops, and the biological activity of allelopathic secondary metabolites are detailed. Conclusions: These studies suggest that a combination of secondary metabolites can be used to attack weeds.