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MICROBIAL ECOLOGY

Rhizobiome shields plants from infection

Nature Microbiology volume 5, pages 978–979 (2020)Cite this article

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Iron-scavenging molecules called siderophores that are produced by the native microbial residents of plant roots fend off plant pathogens such as Ralstonia solanacearum.

Plant pathogens have evolved to be highly efficient in infecting their hosts and bypassing plant immune systems1. However, some pathogens may be deterred by an understudied defence barrier — the rhizosphere microbiome. This microbiome is diverse and can contain hundreds of different species of microorganisms capable of outcompeting invaders like the well-known plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum2. The diversity of microorganisms in the plant rhizosphere makes the study of this system challenging. Although 16S ribosomal RNA amplicon and metagenomic surveys are useful for building inventories of genes and taxa, they rarely reveal mechanisms of action. In this issue of Nature Microbiology, Gu et al. address this challenging problem by cultivating 2,150 bacterial isolates from 80 rhizosphere microbiomes and characterizing their interaction with Ralstonia solanacearum in vitro as well as in planta3.

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Fig. 1: Siderophore-mediated interactions determine the fate of R. solanacearum infection.

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  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Shaul Pollak & Otto X. Cordero

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  1. Shaul Pollak
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  2. Otto X. Cordero
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Correspondence to Otto X. Cordero.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Pollak, S., Cordero, O.X. Rhizobiome shields plants from infection. Nat Microbiol 5, 978–979 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-020-0766-1

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