Abstract
Plants are capable of releasing specific root exudates to recruit beneficial rhizosphere microbes upon foliar pathogen invasion attack, including long-chain fatty acids, amino acids, short-chain organic acids and sugars. Although long-chain fatty acids and amino acids application have been linked to soil legacy effects that improve future plant performance in the presence of the pathogen, the precise mechanisms involved are to a large extent still unknown. Here, we conditioned soils with long-chain fatty acids and amino acids application (L + A) or short-chain organic acids and sugars (S + S) to examine the direct role of such exudates on soil microbiome structure and function. The L + A treatment recruited higher abundances of Proteobacteria which were further identified as members of the genera Sphingomonas, Pseudomonas, Roseiflexus, and Flavitalea. We then isolated the enriched bacterial strains from these groups, identifying ten Pseudomonas strains that were able to help host plant to resist foliar pathogen infection. Further investigation showed that the L + A treatment resulted in growth promotion of these Pseudomonas strains. Collectively, our data suggest that long-chain fatty acids and amino acids stimulated by foliar pathogen infection can recruit specific Pseudomonas populations that can help protect the host plant or future plant generations.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Ryan Penton (Arizona State University) for the comments on this manuscript. J. Y. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31902107), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20170724), and National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (BX201600075).
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Highlights
• Long-chain fatty acids and amino acids application could form foliar disease resistant-soil microbial community.
• Population of Pseudomonas was enriched by long-chain fatty acids and amino acids application.
• The enriched Pseudomonas could help plant resistant foliar pathogens.
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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Sequence data are deposited in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database (SRP243322).
Authors’ contributions
JY: performed all experiments; JY and QS designed the study, and wrote the majority of the manuscript; JY, TW and MZ: analyzed the data; GAK: participated in the design of the study, provided comments and edited the manuscript.
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Wen, T., Zhao, M., Yuan, J. et al. Root exudates mediate plant defense against foliar pathogens by recruiting beneficial microbes. Soil Ecol. Lett. 3, 42–51 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42832-020-0057-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42832-020-0057-z