Endophytic Communities of Transgenic Poplar Were Determined by the Environment and Niche Rather Than by Transgenic Events

• Published in: Frontiers in microbiology Vol. 10; p. 588
• Main Authors: Wang, Yanbo, Zhang, Weixi, Ding, Changjun, Zhang, Bingyu, Huang, Qinjun, Huang, Rongfeng, Su, Xiaohua
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 26-03-2019
• Subjects: amplicon Illumina MiSeq; endophytic communities; environmental condition; Microbiology; niche differentiation; Populus alba × P. berolinensis; transgenic events; niche differentiation; amplicon Illumina MiSeq; environmental condition; transgenic events; Populus alba × P. berolinensis; endophytic communities
• ISSN: 1664-302X; 1664-302X
• DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.00588

Microbial communities associated with plants represent key determinants of plant health, survival, and growth. However, a good understanding of the structural composition of the bacterial and fungal microbiome present in different plant tissues and growing environments, especially in transgenic woody plants, is required. In the present study, we hypothesized that environmental conditions, ecological niches, and transgenic events could influence the community structure of plant-associated microorganisms (bacterial and fungal endophytes). We sampled the root and stem endospheres of field-grown transgenic and non-transgenic poplar trees (
×
) and applied 16S rRNA and internal transcribed spacer amplicon Illumina MiSeq sequencing to determine the bacterial and fungal communities associated with the different plant habitats and tissues. We found that actinobacteria, proteobacteria, bacteroidetes, and firmicutes were the dominant endophytic bacteria, and the fungal community was dominated by dothideomycetes, agaricomycetes, leotiomycetes, and sordariomycetes. In conclusion, transgenic events did not affect the endophytic bacterial and fungal diversity of poplar trees. The bacterial and fungal community structure depends on the pH and the soil organic matter content. Each plant tissue represents a unique ecological niche for the microbial communities. Finally, we identified the indicator operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and core microbiome associated with the different plant tissues of
and different environmental conditions. The results provide a basis for further study of host-microbial interactions with the identified abundant OTUs of
.