Search

Plants have coevolved together with the microbes that surround them and this assemblage of host and microbes functions as a discrete ecological unit called a holobiont. This review outlines plant-driven assembly of disease-suppressive microbiomes. Plants are colonized by microbes from seed, soil, and air but selectively shape the microbiome with root exudates, creating microenvironment hot spots where microbes thrive. Using plant immunity for gatekeeping and surveillance, host-plant genetic properties govern microbiome assembly and can confer adaptive advantages to the holobiont. These advantages manifest in disease-suppressive soils, where buildup of specific microbes inhibits the causal agent of disease, that typically develop after an initial disease outbreak. Based on disease-suppressive soils such as take-all decline, we developed a conceptual model of how plants in response to pathogen attack cry for help and recruit plant-protective microbes that confer increased resistance. Thereby, plants create a soilborne legacy that protects subsequent generations and forms disease-suppressive soils.

Plants deposit photosynthetically-fixed carbon in the rhizosphere, the thin soil layer directly around the root, thereby creating a hospitable environment for microbes. To manage the inhabitants of this nutrient-rich environment, plant roots exude and dynamically adjust microbe-attracting and -repelling compounds to stimulate specific members of the microbiome. Previously, we demonstrated that foliar infection of Arabidopsis thaliana by the biotrophic downy mildew pathogen Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis (Hpa) leads to a disease-induced modification of the rhizosphere microbiome. Soil conditioned with Hpa-infected plants provided enhanced protection against foliar downy mildew infection in a subsequent population of plants, a phenomenon dubbed the soil-borne legacy (SBL). Here, we show that for the creation of the SBL, plant-produced coumarins play a prominent role as coumarin-deficient myb72 and f6'h1 mutants were defective in creating a Hpa-induced SBL. Root exudation profiles changed significantly in Col-0 upon foliar Hpa infection, and this was accompanied by a compositional shift in the root microbiome that was significantly different from microbial shifts occurring on roots of Hpa-infected coumarin-deficient mutants. Our data further show that the Hpa-induced SBL primes Col-0 plants growing in SBL-conditioned soil for salicylic acid (SA)-dependent defenses. The SA-signaling mutants sid2 and npr1 were unresponsive to the Hpa-induced SBL, suggesting that the protective effect of the Hpa-induced shift in the root microbiome results from an induced systemic resistance that requires SA-signaling in the plant., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Land plant genomes carry tens to hundreds of Resistance (R) genes to combat pathogens. The induction of antiviral R-gene-mediated resistance often results in a hypersensitive response (HR), which is characterized by virus containment in the initially infected tissues and programmed cell death (PCD) of the infected cells. Alternatively, systemic HR (SHR) is sometimes observed in certain R gene-virus combinations, such that the virus systemically infects the plant and PCD induction follows the spread of infection, resulting in systemic plant death. SHR has been suggested to be the result of inefficient resistance induction; however, no quantitative comparison has been performed to support this hypothesis. In this study, we report that the average number of viral genomes that establish cell infection decreased by 28.7% and 12.7% upon HR induction by wild-type cucumber mosaic virus and SHR induction by a single-amino acid variant, respectively. These results suggest that a small decrease in the level of resistance induction can change an HR to an SHR. Although SHR appears to be a failure of resistance at the individual level, our simulations imply that suicidal individual death in SHR may function as an antiviral mechanism at the population level, by protecting neighboring uninfected kin plants., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

In July 2020, plants with crinkled, chlorotic, occasionally necrotic leaves, typical for Soybean Mosaic Virus (SMV), were observed in eight soybean fields ( Glycine max L. ) in Flevoland, The Netherlands (Supp. Fig. 1). Disease incidence varied from 5-50% and the plants affected often occurred in small or extensive patches. Leaves from several symptomatic plants were sampled from each of two fields planted with soybean variety Green Shell or Summer Shell. Total RNA was extracted from one plant leaf sample per field using InviTrap Spin Plant RNA Mini Kit (Invitek, Germany). One-tube RT-PCRs employing potyvirus generic primers P9502 and CPUP (Van der Vlugt et al, 1999) and SMV-specific primers SMV-dT (5'-TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTAGGACAAC-3') and SMV-Nib-Fw (5'-CAAGGATGARTTTAAGGAG-3') combined with Sanger sequencing confirmed the presence of SMV in all leaf samples. To exclude the presence of other agents in the samples, total RNA from each cultivar was used in standard Illumina library preparation with ribosomal RNA depletion followed by sequencing on an Illumina NovaSeq6000 (paired-end, 150 bp) which yielded 66,579,158 reads (Summer Shell) and 223,953,206 reads (Green Shell). After quality trimming in CLC Genomics Workbench 20.0.4 (CLC-GWB; Qiagen, Hilden), four million reads were randomly sampled for de novo assembly. Contigs over 500 nucleotides (nts) in length with a minimum of 500 reads were annotated by BLASTn against NCBI GenBank. This identified one contig of 9,883 nts (6,233,397 reads) in Summer Shell and one contig of 9,727 nts (3,139,927 reads) in Green Shell with clear homology to SMV (E-value = 0.0). No other viruses were identified in the datasets. Reference assemblies against the SMV reference sequence (NC_002634) mapped 24,090,763 reads (36.2%) for Summer Shell and 175,459,637 reads (78.3%) for Green Shell. Extracted consensus sequences for SMV in both soybean cultivars were 9,584 nts long (excluding the poly-A tail). Sequence data from the de novo and reference assemblies were combined into consensus sequences which showed over 98% overall nt sequence identity to NC_002634 and 99.6% to each other. Both consensus sequences were deposited in GenBank under accession numbers MW822167 (SMV-Summer Shell) and MW822168 (SMV-Green Shell). In addition, the presence of SMV in the field samples was confirmed with an inoculation assay. Leaf samples from both fields were ground in phosphate buffer (0.1M, pH 7.2) and inoculated on cotyledons and first expanded leaves of soybean plants (unknown cv.) 12 days post-germination. Plants showed veinal chlorosis in systemic leaves from 12 days post-inoculation, which developed into veinal necrosis. SMV infections were confirmed by RT-PCR in systemic, chlorotic leaf samples of all symptomatic plants using the SMV-specific primers described above. To our knowledge, this is the first report of SMV in The Netherlands. As soybean is a relatively new but expanding crop in this country, information about emerging diseases is highly relevant. SMV can be transmitted via seeds and aphids, where seeds can serve as primary source of virus inoculum (Cui et al., 2011; Hartman et al., 2016; Hajimorad et al., 2018). Weeds and non-commercial plants can also serve as origin of SMV, particularly in subsequent growing seasons, although this virus infects a limited host range of six plant families (Cui et al., 2011; Hill & Whitham, 2014). Special monitoring would be advised for the recurrence and possible damage by SMV in Dutch soybean fields.

Pseudomonas simiae WCS417 is a root-colonizing bacterium with well-established plant-beneficial effects. Upon colonization of Arabidopsis roots, WCS417 evades local root immune responses while triggering an induced systemic resistance (ISR) in the leaves. The early onset of ISR in roots shows similarities with the iron deficiency response, as both responses are associated with the production and secretion of coumarins. Coumarins can mobilize iron from the soil environment and have a selective antimicrobial activity that impacts microbiome assembly in the rhizosphere. Being highly coumarin-tolerant, WCS417 induces the secretion of these phenolic compounds, likely to improve its own niche establishment, while providing growth and immunity benefits for the host in return. To investigate the possible signaling function of coumarins in the mutualistic Arabidopsis -WCS417 interaction, we analyzed the transcriptome of WCS417 growing in root exudates of coumarin-producing Arabidopsis Col-0 and the coumarin-biosynthesis mutant f6'h1 . We found that coumarins in F6'H1-dependent root exudates significantly affected the expression of 439 bacterial genes (8% of the bacterial genome). Of those, genes with functions related to transport and metabolism of carbohydrates, amino acids, and nucleotides were induced, whereas genes with functions related to cell motility, the bacterial mobilome, and energy production and conversion were repressed. Strikingly, most genes related to flagellar biosynthesis were down-regulated by F6'H1-dependent root exudates and we found that application of selected coumarins reduces bacterial motility. These findings suggest that coumarins' function in the rhizosphere as semiochemicals in the communication between the roots and WCS417. Collectively, our results provide important novel leads for future functional analysis of molecular processes in the establishment of plant-mutualist interactions.

Looking forward includes looking back every now and then. In 2007, David Weller looked back at 30 years of biocontrol of soil-borne pathogens by Pseudomonas and signified that the progress made over decades of research has provided a firm foundation to formulate current and future research questions. It has been recognized for more than a century that soil-borne microbes play a significant role in plant growth and health. The recent application of high-throughput omics technologies has enabled detailed dissection of the microbial players and molecular mechanisms involved in the complex interactions in plant-associated microbiomes. Here, we highlight old and emerging plant microbiome concepts related to plant disease control, and address perspectives that modern and emerging microbiomics technologies can bring to functionally characterize and exploit plant-associated microbiomes for the benefit of plant health in future microbiome-assisted agriculture., (Copyright © 2020 The Author. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Plant roots nurture a tremendous diversity of microbes via exudation of photosynthetically fixed carbon sources. In turn, probiotic members of the root microbiome promote plant growth and protect the host plant against pathogens and pests. In the Arabidopsis thaliana - Pseudomonas simiae WCS417 model system the root-specific transcription factor MYB72 and the MYB72-controlled β-glucosidase BGLU42 emerged as important regulators of beneficial rhizobacteria-induced systemic resistance (ISR) and iron-uptake responses. MYB72 regulates the biosynthesis of iron-mobilizing fluorescent phenolic compounds, after which BGLU42 activity is required for their excretion into the rhizosphere. Metabolite fingerprinting revealed the antimicrobial coumarin scopoletin as a dominant metabolite that is produced in the roots and excreted into the rhizosphere in a MYB72- and BGLU42-dependent manner. Shotgun-metagenome sequencing of root-associated microbiota of Col-0, myb72 , and the scopoletin biosynthesis mutant f6'h1 showed that scopoletin selectively impacts the assembly of the microbial community in the rhizosphere. We show that scopoletin selectively inhibits the soil-borne fungal pathogens Fusarium oxysporum and Verticillium dahliae , while the growth-promoting and ISR-inducing rhizobacteria P. simiae WCS417 and Pseudomonas capeferrum WCS358 are highly tolerant of the antimicrobial effect of scopoletin. Collectively, our results demonstrate a role for coumarins in microbiome assembly and point to a scenario in which plants and probiotic rhizobacteria join forces to trigger MYB72/BGLU42-dependent scopolin production and scopoletin excretion, resulting in improved niche establishment for the microbial partner and growth and immunity benefits for the host plant., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)