Publication - Journal Article Defined synthetic microbial communities colonize and benefit field-grown sorghum (pre-print)

The rhizosphere represents a dynamic and complex interface between plant hosts and the microbial community found in the surrounding soil. While it is recognized that manipulating the rhizosphere has the potential to improve plant fitness and health, engineering the rhizosphere microbiome through inoculation has often proved challenging. This is in large part due to the competitive microbial ecosystem in which the added microbes must survive, and lack of adaptation of these added microbes to the specific metabolic and environmental pressures of the rhizosphere. Here, we constructed an inoculation formula using a defined synthetic community (dSynCom) approach that we hypothesized would improve engraftment efficiency and potentially the relationship with the host plant, Sorghum bicolor. The dSynCom was assembled from bacterial isolates that were either: 1) identified to potentially play a role in community cohesion through network analysis, or 2) identified to benefit from host-specific exudate compounds. Growth of the dSynCom was first evaluated in vitro on solid media, secondly in planta under gnotobiotic laboratory conditions, and finally using sorghum plants grown in the field.

Reference Citation

Defined synthetic microbial communities colonize and benefit field-grown sorghum. Citlali Fonseca-García, Andrew Wilson, Joshua Elmore, Dean Pettinga, Ryan McClure, Jackie Atim, Julie Pedraza, Robert Hutmacher, Robert Egbert, Devin Coleman-Derr. bioRxiv 2023.05.30.542977; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.05.30.542977