2024-01-13 14:01:00
Scientists are helping plants by engineering their microbiome to protect them once morest disease. Photo by Nikola Jovanovic on Unsplash. Kerry Taylor-Smith Meteored United Kingdom 01/13/2024 11:01 4 min
We hear a lot regarding our microbiome, the large number of microorganisms that live in and around our body, especially our intestines. But we hear much less regarding the plant microbiomes.
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Plants also host a wide variety of bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microorganisms that live in its roots, stems and leaves and, for the first time, scientists have engineered the plant microbiome to increase the abundance of “good” bacteria that protect you from diseases and significantly reduce the need for environmentally harmful pesticides
A focus on rice
Researchers of the University of Southamptonalong with teams from China and Austria, have been studying the rice plant microbiome to understand how affects the health of the plant and its vulnerability to diseases.
They discovered that a specific gene located in the plant’s lignin biosynthesis cluster is involved in shaping its microbiome. When it was deactivated, there was a decrease in the population of certain beneficial bacteriademonstrating its importance in the microbiome community.
The researchers then overexpressed the gene so that it produced more of a specific type of metabolite, which increased the proportion of beneficial bacteria in the plant microbiome. When exposed to Xanthomonas oryzae, a pathogen that causes bacterial blight in rice crops, the modified plants were considerably more resistant than wild type rice.
Scientists have engineered the microbiome of rice plants to protect them once morest bacterial blight. Photo by PhotographyCourse on Unsplash
“For the first time, we have been able to change the composition of a plant’s microbiome in a way specificincreasing the number of beneficial bacteria that can protect the plant from other harmful bacteria,” says Dr. Tomislav Cernava, co-author of the paper and associate professor of plant-microbe interactions at the University of Southampton.
Bacterial plague can cause significant rice yield loss, especially in Asia. It is usually controlled with pesticides, so developing a crop with a protective microbiome might reduce dependence on pesticides andat the same time, increase food security.
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“This advance might reduce dependence on pesticides, which are harmful to the environment”says Cenava. “We have achieved this in rice crops, but the framework we have created might be applied to other plants and unlock other opportunities to improve your microbiome. For example, microbes that increase the supply of nutrients to crops might reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers.”
The team, which published its findings in Nature Communicationsis now exploring how they can influence the presence of other microbes beneficial in unlocking various health benefits of plants.
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