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An ancestral Matryoshka doll

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 19, page 140 (2021)Cite this article

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This month’s Genome Watch highlights the genomic traits underlying the ancestral association between endobacteria, which live inside arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, which in turn reside within plants.

Plants have been a fundamental part of terrestrial ecosystems for ~450 million years. It was proposed that their successful colonization of land was facilitated by the formation of a symbiotic relationship with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). AMF promote plant growth by acquiring scarce and essential nutrients, and they are found among 70–90% of all land plants today. AMF themselves host a large diversity of endobacteria that can aid in improved AMF survival. The potential for enhancing crop yields by increasing our understanding of this association is tremendous, and recent progress has been made in disclosing the genomic foundation underlying the ‘matryoshka doll’ architecture of endobacteria inside AMF inside land plants.

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  1. DOE Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Esther Singer

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  1. Esther Singer
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Correspondence to Esther Singer.

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Singer, E. An ancestral Matryoshka doll. Nat Rev Microbiol 19, 140 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-021-00509-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-021-00509-8

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