Plant microbiome blueprints

• Autores: Cara H. Haney, Frederick M. Ausubel
• Localización: Science, ISSN 0036-8075, Vol. 349, Nº 6250, 2015, págs. 788-789
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Just as the number of petals in a flower or the number of limbs on an animal follow predictable rules, host-associated microbial communities (“microbiomes”) have predictable compositions. At the level of bacterial phylum, the structure of the host-associated microbiome is conserved across individuals of a species (1, 2). The consistency and predictability of host-associated microbiomes—like many of the phenotypes of a particular multicellular organism—suggest that they too may, in part, be under the regulation of a genetic blueprint. Indeed, evidence in animals shows that through production of broad-spectrum antimicrobials, the innate immune system shapes the composition of the gut microbiome (3, 4). On page 860 of this issue, Lebeis et al. (5) reveal a critical role of the plant hormone salicylic acid in determining the higher-order organization of the root-associated microbiome of the reference plant Arabidopsis thaliana.