Project description:Enterobacter sp. SA187 is a facultative endophytic bacterium conferring multi-abiotic stress tolerance to various plant hosts. Upon interaction with plant tissues, a significant proportion of the typically yellow SA187 lose pigmentation. This phenotypic shift becomes more prominent with extended host plant colonization and under stress conditions, such as salinity. To explore the underlying mechanisms and ecological significance of this variation, we employed genome sequencing, comparative genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolic characterization. In all white SA187 variants, weidentified consistent point mutations in the rpoS gene, which encodes a global regulatory sigma factor. These rpoS loss-of-function mutations lead to alterations in gene regulation, affecting growth, morphology, biofilm formation, motility, oxidative stress responses and carotenoid production. Notably, the rpoS mutants demonstrated enhanced adaptability from a free living to an endophytic life style. Whereas the desert soil is characterized by highly alkaline conditions, the apoplast of the host plant is an acidic environment accompanied with the availability of distinct carbon sources. RpoS mutants allow life in the acidic and sucrose-rich apoplastic compartment, underscoring the role of genetic variation in bacterial adaptation to colonize plants.
Project description:The availability of organic carbon represents a major bottleneck for the development of soil microbial communities and the regulation of microbially-mediated ecosystem processes. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on how the lifestyle and population abundances are physiologically regulated by the availability of energy and organic carbon in soil ecosystems. To date, functional insights into the lifestyles of microbial populations have been limited by the lack of straightforward approaches to the tracking of the active microbial populations. Here, by the use of an comprehensiv metaproteomics and genomics, we reveal that C-availability modulates the lifestyles of bacterial and fungal populations in drylands and determines the compartmentalization of functional niches. This study highlights that the active diversity (evaluated by metaproteomics) but not the diversity of the whole microbial community (estimated by genome profiling) is modulated by the availability of carbon and is connected to the ecosystem functionality in drylands.
Project description:Cover cropping is an effective method to protect agricultural soils from erosion, promote nutrient and moisture retention, encourage beneficial microbial activity, and maintain soil structure. Reusing winter cover crop root channels with the maize roots during the summer allows the cash crop to extract resources from farther niches in the soil horizon. In this study, we investigate how reusing winter cover crop root channels to grow maize (Zea mays L.) affects the composition and function of the bacterial communities in the rhizosphere using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and metaproteomics. We discovered that the bacterial community significantly differed among cover crop variations, soil profile depths, and maize growth stages. Re-usage of the root channels increased bacterial abundance, and it further increases as we elevate the complexity from monocultures to mixtures. Upon mixing legumes with brassicas and grasses, the overall expression of several steps of the carbon cycle (C) and the nitrogen cycle (N) improved. The deeper root channels of legumes and brassicas compared to grasses correlated with higher bacterial 16S rRNA gene copy numbers and community roles in the respective variations in the subsoil regimes due to the increased availability of root exudates secreted by maize roots. In conclusion, root channel re-use (monocultures and mixtures) improved the expression of metabolic pathways of the important C and N cycles, and the bacterial communities, which is beneficial to the soil rhizosphere as well as to the growing crops.
Project description:H. seropedicae is a diazotrophic and endophytic bacterium that associates with economically important grasses promoting plant growth and increasing productivity. To identify genes related to bacterial ability to colonize and promote plant growth wheat seedlings growing hydroponically in Hoaglandâs medium were inoculated with H. seropedicae the bacteria and incubated for 3 days. mRNA from the bacteria present in the root surface and in the plant medium were purified, depleted from rRNA and used for RNA-seq profiling. RT-qPCR analyses were conducted to confirm regulation of selected genes. Comparison of RNA profile of bacteria attached to the root and planktonic revealed an extensive metabolic adaptation to the epiphytic life style.
Project description:Recent studies have shown that several plant species require microbial associations for stress tolerance and survival. In this work, we show that the desert endophytic bacterium Enterobacter sp. SA187 enhances yield and biomass of alfalfa in field trials, revealing a high potential for improving desert agriculture. To understand the underlying molecular mechanisms, we studied SA187 interaction with Arabidopsis thaliana. SA187 colonized surface and inner tissues of Arabidopsis roots and shoots and conferred tolerance to salt and osmotic stresses. Transcriptome, genetic and pharmacological studies revealed that the ethylene signaling pathway plays a key role in mediating SA187-triggered abiotic stress tolerance to plants. While plant ethylene production is not required, our data suggest that SA187 induces abiotic stress tolerance by bacterial production of 2-keto-4-methylthiobutyric acid (KMBA), known be converted into ethylene in planta. These results reveal a part of the complex molecular communication process during beneficial plant-microbe interactions and unravel an important role of ethylene in protecting plants under abiotic stress conditions.