Testosterone amendment alters metabolite profiles of the soil microbial community

Steroid hormones are prevalent in the environment and have become emerging pollutants, but little is known about their effects on soil microbial community composition function. In present study, three representative soils China were amended with environmentally relevant concentrations of testosterone responses bacterial function assessed using high-throughput sequencing nontargeted metabolomics. Our results showed that exposure significantly shifted structure metabolic profiles at Ningbo (NB) Kunming (KM), which may reflect high bioavailability hormone. Abundances several taxa associated nutrient cycling reduced by metabolites related to amino acid metabolism downregulated. A close connection between specific was observed confirmed Procrustes tests a co-occurrence network. These provide an insight into steroid highlight metabolomics effective tool for investigating impacts pollutants.