Design of synthetic bacterial communities for predictable plant phenotypes

Herrera Paredes, Sur; Gao, Tianxiang; Law, Theresa F.; Finkel, Omri M.; Mucyn, Tatiana; Teixeira, Paulo José Pereira Lima; Salas González, Isaí; Feltcher, Meghan E.; Powers, Matthew J.; Shank, Elizabeth A.; Jones, Corbin D.; Jojic, Vladimir; Dangl, Jeffery L.; Castrillo, Gabriel

Abstract

Specific members of complex microbiota can influence host phenotypes, depending on both the abiotic environment and the presence of other microorganisms. Therefore, it is challenging to define bacterial combinations that have predictable host phenotypic outputs. We demonstrate that plant-bacterium binary-association assays inform the design of small synthetic communities with predictable phenotypes in the host. Specifically, we constructed synthetic communities that modified phosphate accumulation in the shoot and induced phosphate starvation-responsive genes in a predictable fashion. We found that bacterial colonization of the plant is not a predictor of the plant phenotypes we analyzed. Finally, we demonstrated that characterizing a subset of all possible bacterial synthetic communities is sufficient to predict the outcome of untested bacterial consortia. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to infer causal relationships between microbiota membership and host phenotypes and to use these inferences to rationally design novel communities

Citation

Herrera Paredes, S., Gao, T., Law, T. F., Finkel, O. M., Mucyn, T., Teixeira, P. J. P. L., Salas González, I., Feltcher, M. E., Powers, M. J., Shank, E. A., Jones, C. D., Jojic, V., Dangl, J. L., & Castrillo, G. (2018). Design of synthetic bacterial communities for predictable plant phenotypes. PLoS Biology, 16(2), Article e2003962. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2003962

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 17, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Feb 20, 2018
• Publication Date: Feb 20, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jul 24, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 24, 2019
• Journal: PLOS Biology
• Print ISSN: 1544-9173
• Electronic ISSN: 1545-7885
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: e2003962
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2003962
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2338225
• Publisher URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003962
• Contract Date: Jul 24, 2019