The activity of soil microbial taxa in the rhizosphere predicts the success of root colonization.

ABSTRACT: Plant-beneficial microbes have great potential to improve sustainability in agriculture. Still, managing beneficial microbes is challenging because the impact of microbial dormancy on community assembly across the soil, rhizosphere, and endosphere is poorly understood. We address this gap with the first documented use of Biorthogonal Non-Canonical Amino Acid Tagging (BONCAT) to probe active microbes in the soil-to-root gradient. Using nodule-forming legume Trifolium incarnatum, we confirmed that BONCAT is suitable for labeling endospheric microbes with microscopy. Next, we coupled BONCAT to Flow Cytometer Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) and 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing to probe patterns of microbial activity and the structure of the active microbial community across the soil, rhizosph

SUBMITTER: Harris JE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12455943 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature