Antimicrobial peptide expression in a wild tobacco plant reveals the limits of host-microbe-manipulations in the field

eLife

Ian T Baldwin¹  Natarajan Rameshkumar²  Ran Li²  Arne Weinhold²  Elham Karimi Dorcheh² 

[1] Biotechnology Department, National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, India;Department of Molecular Ecology, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany;

关键词: microbiome function;    microbiome engineering;    plant endophyte;    heterologous expression;    plant-microbe interaction;    knottin;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.28715

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Plant-microbe associations are thought to be beneficial for plant growth and resistance against biotic or abiotic stresses, but for natural ecosystems, the ecological analysis of microbiome function remains in its infancy. We used transformed wild tobacco plants (Nicotiana attenuata) which constitutively express an antimicrobial peptide (Mc-AMP1) of the common ice plant, to establish an ecological tool for plant-microbe studies in the field. Transgenic plants showed in planta activity against plant-beneficial bacteria and were phenotyped within the plants´ natural habitat regarding growth, fitness and the resistance against herbivores. Multiple field experiments, conducted over 3 years, indicated no differences compared to isogenic controls. Pyrosequencing analysis of the root-associated microbial communities showed no major alterations but marginal effects at the genus level. Experimental infiltrations revealed a high heterogeneity in peptide tolerance among native isolates and suggests that the diversity of natural microbial communities can be a major obstacle for microbiome manipulations in nature.

【 授权许可】

Unknown