Project description:The goal of this growth chamber experiment was to investigate the effects of diverse soil microbial communities on the transcriptional responses of plants to drought. Specifically, we sought to understand how soil microbiomes' past exposure to water-limited conditions (either long-term exposure to dry conditions in low-precipitation sites, or recent acute drought) impacted their interactions with plants. Six soils collected from remnant prairies crossing a steep precipitation gradient in Kansas, USA were used as the starting microbial communities. Thirty-two pots (or mesocosms) of each soil were divided among four treatments: droughted or well-watered, and with or without a host plant (Tripsacum dactyloides) in a factorial design. The soil mesocosms were "conditioned" in these treatments for five months. (Metagenome and metatranscriptome data from the baseline soils and the post-conditioning soils are available in a separate BioProject on NCBI SRA and GEO). Then, a microbial slurry extracted from each of the 192 conditioned soils was used to inoculate 4 plants in a subsequent experiment (the “Test Phase”): one pot per combination of watering treatment (droughted or control) and host species (Zea mays or Tripsacum dactyloides). After 4 weeks (for maize) or 5 weeks (for eastern gamagrass) we harvested one crown root per plant for 16S rRNA sequencing and another crown root for RNA-seq. The 16S and RNA-seq data for these plants (both species) are contained in this BioProject. Note that 16S rRNA sequencing data are available for all plants in this experiment, but we conducted RNA-seq only for a subset (all plants grown in microbiomes originating from the 2 driest and 2 wettest collection sites).
Project description:Metagenome data from soil samples were collected at 0 to 10cm deep from 2 avocado orchards in Channybearup, Western Australia, in 2024. Amplicon sequence variant (ASV) tables were constructed based on the DADA2 pipeline with default parameters.
Project description:The association between soil microbes and plant roots is present in all natural and agricultural environments. Microbes can be beneficial, pathogenic, or neutral to the host plant development and adaptation to abiotic or biotic stresses. Progress in investigating the functions and changes in microbial communities in diverse environments have been rapidly developing in recent years, but the changes in root function is still largely understudied. The aim of this study was to determine how soil bacteria influence maize root transcription and microRNAs (miRNAs) populations in a controlled inoculation of known microbes over a defined time course. At each time point after inoculation of the maize inbred line B73 with ten bacterial isolates, DNA and RNA were isolated from roots. The V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified from the DNA and sequenced with the Illumina MiSeq platform. Amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene indicated that most of the microbes successfully colonized maize roots. The colonization was dynamic over time and varied with the specific bacterial isolate. Small RNA sequencing and mRNA-Seq was done to capture changes in the root transcriptome from 0.5 to 480 hours after inoculation. The transcriptome and small RNA analyses revealed epigenetic and transcriptional changes in roots due to the microbial inoculation. This research provides the foundational data needed to understand how plant roots interact with bacterial partners and will be used to develop predictive models for root response to bacteria.
Project description:Aluminum toxicity is one of the major limiting factors for many crops worldwide. The primary symptom of Al toxicity syndrome is the inhibition of root growth, leading to poor water and nutrient absorption. The causes of this inhibition are still elusive, with several biochemical pathways being affected and with a significant variation between species. Most of the work done so far to investigate the genes responsible for Al tolerance used hydroponic culture. Here we evaluated plant responses using soil as substrate, which is a condition closer to the field reality. We used Affymetrix chips to reveal the transcriptional changes of two maize genotypes contrasting for Al tolerance. Leaves from Cat100-6 (Al-tolerant) and S1587-17 (Al-sensitive) maize genotypes were harvested after growing on acid or control soil for 3 days. Total RNA was extracted and hybridized to Affymetrix GeneChip Maize Genome Array. Three biological replicates were used for each sample.
Project description:Aluminum toxicity is one of the major limiting factors for many crops worldwide. The primary symptom of Al toxicity syndrome is the inhibition of root growth, leading to poor water and nutrient absorption. The causes of this inhibition are still elusive, with several biochemical pathways being affected and with a significant variation between species. Most of the work done so far to investigate the genes responsible for Al tolerance used hydroponic culture. Here we evaluated plant responses using soil as substrate, which is a condition closer to the field reality. We used Affymetrix chips to reveal the transcriptional changes of two maize genotypes contrasting for Al tolerance. Root tips from Cat100-6 (Al-tolerant) and S1587-17 (Al-sensitive) maize genotypes were harvested after growing on acid or control soil for 1 or 3 days. Total RNA was extracted and hybridized to Affymetrix GeneChip Maize Genome Array. Three biological replicates were used for each sample.