Microorganisms are found everywhere, and they are closely associated with plants. Because the establishment of any plant-microbe association involves chemical communication, understanding crosstalk processes is fundamental to defining the type of relationship. Although several metabolites from plants and microbes have been fully characterized, their roles in the chemical interplay between these partners are not well understood in most cases, and they require further investigation. In this review, we describe different plant-microbe associations from colonization to microbial establishment processes in plants along with future prospects, including agricultural benefits.
Background: Microorganisms influence the chemical milieu of their environment, and chemical metabolites can affect ecological processes. In built environments, where people spend the majority of their time, very little is known about how surface-borne microorganisms influence the chemistry of the indoor spaces. Here, we applied multidisciplinary approaches to investigate aspects of chemical microbiology in a house.
Microbiomes associated with various plant structures often contain members with the potential to make specialized metabolites, e.g., molecules with antibacterial, antifungal, or siderophore activities. However, when and where microbes associated with plants produce specialized metabolites, and the potential role of these molecules in mediating intramicrobiome interactions, is not well understood. Root nodules of legume plants are organs devoted to hosting symbiotic bacteria that fix atmospheric nitrogen and have recently been shown to harbor a relatively simple accessory microbiome containing members with the ability to produce specialized metabolites in vitro. On the basis of these observations, we sought to develop a model nodule microbiome system for evaluating specialized microbial metabolism in planta. Starting with an inoculum derived from field-grown Medicago sativa nodules, serial passaging through gnotobiotic nodules yielded a simplified accessory community composed of four members: Brevibacillus brevis, Paenibacillus sp., Pantoea agglomerans, and Pseudomonas sp. Some members of this community exhibited clear cooperation in planta, while others were antagonistic and capable of disrupting cooperation between other partners. Using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–imaging mass spectrometry, we found that metabolites associated with individual taxa had unique distributions, indicating that some members of the nodule community were spatially segregated. Finally, we identified two families of molecules produced by B. brevis in planta as the antibacterial tyrocidines and a novel set of gramicidin-type molecules, which we term the britacidins. Collectively, these results indicate that in addition to nitrogen fixation, legume root nodules are likely also sites of active antimicrobial production.
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