A calcium-fingerprint atlas infers the signaling modes of complex elicitors and reveals a salt-like response to a humic biostimulant
- 1Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf
Abstract
A central challenge in plant signaling is to infer, from an observed response, the mechanism that produced it, including perception and signaling components involved. Cytosolic calcium (Ca2+) is well suited to this reverse-engineering problem: it is a universal early messenger whose spatiotemporal pattern, the Ca2+ signature, is shaped by the specific channels and receptors a stimulus activates. We hypothesize that multiparametric analysis of Ca2+ signals can identify the main signaling pathways activated by complex or poorly defined elicitors such as biostimulants. Here, we establish a quantitative framework to resolve Ca2+ dynamics in roots of Arabidopsis seedlings by transforming spatiotemporal Ca2+ transients into multidimensional signatures. Using a normalization and feature extraction approach (Crestline), we define descriptors capturing the onset time, location along the root axis, duration, and propagation of Ca2+ signals tip- or shootwards, enabling robust comparison across stimuli. Integration of these descriptors reveals stimulus-specific "calcium fingerprints" that allow systematic classification of responses to biotic and abiotic cues within a structured signaling space. To test whether projecting an uncharacterized input into this space can predict its signaling mode, we analyzed a complex humic biostimulant. Its response fell within the fast-onset region of signaling space shared by DAMP and salt responses, clearly apart from MAMP responses, and was altered in moca1, a mutant impaired in salt sensing. Together, these findings establish Ca2+ dynamics as an interpretable encoding layer for environmental information and provide a scalable framework to resolve complex biological inputs.
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BibTeX
@misc{zupunski2026calciumfingerprint,
title = {{A calcium-fingerprint atlas infers the signaling modes of complex elicitors and reveals a salt-like response to a humic biostimulant}},
author = {M. Zupunski and R. Brugman and M. Zauser and K. Lampou and R. Waadt and M. Guichard and M. Krebs and K. Schumacher and R. Lamar and J. Pahle and G. Grossmann},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.06.756665},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.06.756665v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A calcium-fingerprint atlas infers the signaling modes of complex elicitors and reveals a salt-like response to a humic biostimulant
AU - M. Zupunski
AU - R. Brugman
AU - M. Zauser
AU - K. Lampou
AU - R. Waadt
AU - M. Guichard
AU - M. Krebs
AU - K. Schumacher
AU - R. Lamar
AU - J. Pahle
AU - G. Grossmann
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/06
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.06.756665
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.06.756665v1
AB - A central challenge in plant signaling is to infer, from an observed response, the mechanism that produced it, including perception and signaling components involved. Cytosolic calcium (Ca2+) is well suited to this reverse-engineering problem: it is a universal early messenger whose spatiotemporal pattern, the Ca2+ signature, is shaped by the specific channels and receptors a stimulus activates. We hypothesize that multiparametric analysis of Ca2+ signals can identify the main signaling pathways activated by complex or poorly defined elicitors such as biostimulants. Here, we establish a quantitative framework to resolve Ca2+ dynamics in roots of Arabidopsis seedlings by transforming spatiotemporal Ca2+ transients into multidimensional signatures. Using a normalization and feature extraction approach (Crestline), we define descriptors capturing the onset time, location along the root axis, duration, and propagation of Ca2+ signals tip- or shootwards, enabling robust comparison across stimuli. Integration of these descriptors reveals stimulus-specific "calcium fingerprints" that allow systematic classification of responses to biotic and abiotic cues within a structured signaling space. To test whether projecting an uncharacterized input into this space can predict its signaling mode, we analyzed a complex humic biostimulant. Its response fell within the fast-onset region of signaling space shared by DAMP and salt responses, clearly apart from MAMP responses, and was altered in moca1, a mutant impaired in salt sensing. Together, these findings establish Ca2+ dynamics as an interpretable encoding layer for environmental information and provide a scalable framework to resolve complex biological inputs.
ER -