Abstract
We employed an Illumina-based high-throughput metagenomics sequencing approach to unveil the rhizosphere and root endosphere microbial community associated with an organically grown Camellia population located at the Experimental Garden for Plantation Crops, Assam (India). The de novo assembled tea root endosphere metagenome contained 24,231 contigs (total 7,771,089 base pairs with an average length of 321 bps), while tea rhizosphere soil metagenome contained 261,965 sequences (total 230,537,174 base pairs, average length 846). The most prominent rhizobacteria belonged to the genera, viz., Bacillus (10.35%), Candidatus Solibacter (6.36%), Burkholderia (5.19%), Pseudomonas (3.9%), Streptomyces (3.52%), and Bradyrhizobium (2.77%), while the root endosphere was dominated by bacterial genera, viz., Serratia (46.64%), Methylobacterium (8.02%), Yersinia (5.97%), Burkholderia (2.05%), etc. The presence of few agronomically important bacterial genera, Bradyrhizobium, Rhizobium (each 0.93%), Sinorhizobium (0.34%), Azorhizobium, and Flavobacterium (0.17% each), was also detected in the root endosphere. KEGG pathway mapping indicated the presence of microbial metabolic pathway genes related to tyrosine metabolism, tryptophan metabolism, glyoxylate, and dicarboxylate metabolism which play important roles in endosphere activities, including survival, growth promotion, and host adaptation. The root endosphere microbiome also contained few important plant growth promoting traits related to phytohormone production, abiotic stress alleviation, mineral solubilization, and plant disease suppression.
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The metagenomes are publically available in the NCBI-SRA database (PRJNA698063).
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India for funding the research. The authors also kindly acknowledge the timely suggestions, encouragement, and reviews received from Professor B. K. Sarmah (Director, DBT-NECAB, AAU, Jorhat) throughout the research work.
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This study was funded by the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India (DBT, GoI), through the DBT-North East Centre for Agricultural Biotechnology, Programme-III entitled “Gene prospecting from acid soil microbes.”
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MB had conceived and designed the study. SSB and MBorah had carried out the experiments and collected the data. SSB, KKD, MG, MKD, and MR had analyzed the data and prepared the charts. The manuscript was jointly written by SSB and MB.
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Bora, S.S., Dey, K.K., Borah, M. et al. Niche differentiation of belowground microorganisms and their functional signatures in Assam type tea (Camellia sinensis var. assamica). Arch Microbiol 203, 5661–5674 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-021-02547-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-021-02547-5