Housing helpful invaders: the evolutionary and molecular architecture underlying plant root-mutualist microbe interactions.
Plant root rhizosphere interactions with mutualistic microbes are diverse and numerous, having evolved over time in response to selective pressures on plants to attain anchorage and nutrients. These relationships can be considered to be formed through a combination of architectural connections: molecular architecture interactions that control root-microbe perception and regulate the balance between host and symbiont and developmental architecture interactions that enable the microbes to be 'housed' in the root and enable the exchange of compounds. Recent findings that help to understand the common architecture that exists between nodulation and mycorrhizal interactions, and how this architecture could be re-tuned to develop new symbioses, are discussed here.
School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
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School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
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School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK Miriam.Gifford@warwick.ac.uk.
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D005075:Biological Evolution; D058865:Introduced Species; D056265:Microbial Interactions; D055170:Plant Root Nodulation / Q000235:genetics; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000235:genetics / Q000382:microbiology*; D013559:Symbiosis / Q000235:genetics
Arbuscular mycorrhizal root interactions; SYM symbiosis genes.; evolution of root architecture; nodulation; plant–microbe signalling; rhizosphere biology