Project description:Background: The soil environment is responsible for sustaining most terrestrial plant life on earth, yet we know surprisingly little about the important functions carried out by diverse microbial communities in soil. Soil microbes that inhabit the channels of decaying root systems, the detritusphere, are likely to be essential for plant growth and health, as these channels are the preferred locations of new root growth. Understanding the microbial metagenome of the detritusphere and how it responds to agricultural management such as crop rotations and soil tillage will be vital for improving global food production. Methods: The rhizosphere soils of wheat and chickpea growing under + and - decaying root were collected for metagenomics sequencing. A gene catalogue was established by de novo assembling metagenomic sequencing. Genes abundance was compared between bulk soil and rhizosphere soils under different treatments. Conclusions: The study describes the diversity and functional capacity of a high-quality soil microbial metagenome. The results demonstrate the contribution of the microbiome from decaying root in determining the metagenome of developing root systems, which is fundamental to plant growth, since roots preferentially inhabit previous root channels. Modifications in root microbial function through soil management, can ultimately govern plant health, productivity and food security.
Project description:Flowering pathways are accelerated for rapid production of flowers and seeds in response to drought in certain varieties of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench). The objective of the present study was to identify potential drought responsive genes that affect flowering time in sorghum under drought stress. Sorghum germplasm accessions representing early, intermediate, and late flowering groups were selected, and drought stress was administered on 25-day old seedlings of the Drought-Stressed group (DS) by withdrawing water whilst the control group of plants were well-watered (WW). At anthesis, with the initiation of pollen shedding, flag leaf tissues were harvested, and total RNA was separately isolated from samples. Transcription profiles consisting of 60 base pairs, paired end reads from total RNA of each sample were explored using Illumina Genome Analyzer deep sequencing method. An average of 66,059,932 clean reads were mapped. Among 10,468 differentially expressed genes, a set of 126 genes was up-regulated, and a set of 61 genes was down-regulated in all comparisons. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed de novo purine biosynthesis and lipoate biosynthesis pathways and Wnt signaling pathway affecting differentially expressed sorghum genes in response to drought. Transcriptome level differences among early, intermediate and late flowering groups of sorghum under WW and DS conditions were efficiently explored in the present study using RNA sequence analysis tools. Candidate genes and pathways that might be used to improve drought tolerance in sorghum were identified. Findings of the present study would lead to new targets for enhancing drought stress tolerance in sorghum.