Plant Microbiome Engineering

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Recent leaps in `omics technologies have provided us with an unprecedented understanding of the numerous health implications of interactions between humans and the human microbiome. The door is now open to comprehensively characterize another crucial component of the biosphere: the plant microbiome. Plants are responsible for most primary production in terrestrial environments, and are vital components of food production systems. The plant microbiome can both benefit and undermine plant health, and shifting the balance of this assemblage has huge implications for food production. Beneficial microbes can increase nutrient availability, promote plant growth, suppress pathogens, and may help plants to withstand heat and drought. Even though it has been known for decades that the plant microbiome is a key component of plant health, we are only beginning to produce a system-level understanding of it. As soil microbial assemblages are a rich source of functional diversity with demonstrated plasticity, a better understanding of the plant microbiome will allow it to be engineered to promote specific beneficial microbial taxa, functions and activities. Therefore, the goals of my research program are twofold: 1) use `omics technologies and large-scale data analysis to understand the interactions between plants and their microbiome and, in the longer-term, 2) harness this unique relationship to engineer the plant microbiome and generate real-world solutions to problems such as food production, soil pollution, and global warming. For the next five to ten years, my research program will be focused on three main aims, using one of the most important Canadian crops, wheat (Triticum aestivum), as a model crop plant. The overarching goal is to engineer a wheat microbiome that would be better adapted to future climate scenarios for southern Canada, and that allows growth in sub-optimal conditions, promoting more sustainable agriculture. The proposed program will benefit from the synergy offered by the National Research Council Canada (NRC) Wheat Improvement Flagship Program for which I am involved within the Beneficial Biotic Interaction theme. The three aims are:**1) The Canadian wheat microbiome. The goal of this aim is to find microbial genes and organisms that would promote plant adaptation to limiting conditions. *2) The plant-microbe meta-organism. The goal of this aim is to identify how the plant and its microbiome interact and if this interaction can be recreated in sterile plants using microbial isolates.*3) New approaches for plant microbiome engineering. This aim will focus on generating a proof of concept for plant microbiome engineering. **This research program will innovate by generating a new understanding of the plant microbiome at an unprecedented level of detail, and will lay the ground for targeted rhizosphere engineering. In agro-ecosystems, I expect that a full understanding of the plant microbiome will enable an optimization of plant health, nutrition, and yields, toward a more sustainable agriculture.