11. Root-Soil Interface

Question 1

Structure of the lecture

Answer 1

1. Microbial-Plant Assocations
2. Microcolonies form thorugh chemoattraction
3. Detecting/measuring microbiomes
4. Engineering rhizobia to promote plant growth
5. Engineering fertilisers
6. Engineering nitrogen fixation

Question 2

What are the 4 areas around a plant?

1

Answer 2

1. Rhizosphere
2. Endosphere
3. Phyllosphere
4. Spermosphere

Question 3

What are the 3 stages of bacterial attachment to plants?

2

Answer 3

1. Chemotaxis towards root
2. Reversible primary attachment (determined by electrostatic attachment)
3. Irreversible secondary attachment (determined by cellulose fibrils

Question 4

What are the 3 major methods that we can use to measure microbial colonies?

3

Answer 4

1. NGS (Genomics, Transcriptomics, Proteosmics)
2. Diversity within/between samples. Measuring Amplicon Sequence Variants using the Bray-Curtis Dissimilarity
3. Fluorescent microbiome mapping

Question 5

What are the two methods we can use to engineer Rhizobia for plant growth?

4

Answer 5

1. Repression and promotion of different factors to change plant growth
2. Enhancing plant resistance to pathogens through systemic resistance

Question 6

How can we engineer fertilisers to promote soil suppresive microbes?

5

Answer 6

1. Example: Pseudomonas haplotypes
2. Example: Endophytes

Question 7

What are the two major methods we can use to engineer nitrogen fixation?

6

Answer 7

1. Nitrogen fixation using rhizopines
2. Control of rhizopines