ena-STUDY-MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR PLANT BREEDING RESEARCH-16-02-2021-14:49:05:811-868
A fungal powdery mildew pathogen induces extensive local and marginal systemic changes in the Arabidopsis thaliana microbiota
• Powdery mildew is a foliar disease caused by epiphytically growing obligate biotrophic ascomycete fungi. How powdery mildew colonization affects host resident microbial communities locally and systemically remains poorly explored.• We performed powdery mildew (Golovinomyces orontii) infection experiments with Arabidopsis thaliana grown in either natural soil or a gnotobiotic system and studied the influence of pathogen invasion into standing natural multi-kingdom or synthetic bacterial communities (SynComs).• We found that after infection of soil-grown plants G. orontii outcompetes numerous resident leaf-associated fungi. We further detected a significant shift in foliar but not root-associated bacterial communities in this setup. Pre-colonization of germ-free A. thaliana leaves with a leaf-derived bacterial SynCom, followed by G. orontii invasion, induced an overall similar shift in the foliar bacterial microbiota and minor changes in the root-associated bacterial assemblage. However, a standing SynCom in the root consisting of root-derived bacteria remained robust against foliar infection with G. orontii. Although pathogen growth was unaffected by the leaf-derived SynCom, fungal infection caused a more than two-fold increase in leaf bacterial load.• Our findings indicate that G. orontii infection affects mainly microbial communities in local plant tissue, possibly driven by changes in source-sink relationships and host immune status.
• Powdery mildew is a foliar disease caused by epiphytically growing obligate biotrophic ascomycete fungi. How powdery mildew colonization affects host resident microbial communities locally and systemically remains poorly explored.• We performed powdery mildew (Golovinomyces orontii) infection experiments with Arabidopsis thaliana grown in either natural soil or a gnotobiotic system and studied the influence of pathogen invasion into standing natural multi-kingdom or synthetic bacterial communities (SynComs).• We found that after infection of soil-grown plants G. orontii outcompetes numerous resident leaf-associated fungi. We further detected a significant shift in foliar but not root-associated bacterial communities in this setup. Pre-colonization of germ-free A. thaliana leaves with a leaf-derived bacterial SynCom, followed by G. orontii invasion, induced an overall similar shift in the foliar bacterial microbiota and minor changes in the root-associated bacterial assemblage. However, a standing SynCom in the root consisting of root-derived bacteria remained robust against foliar infection with G. orontii. Although pathogen growth was unaffected by the leaf-derived SynCom, fungal infection caused a more than two-fold increase in leaf bacterial load.• Our findings indicate that G. orontii infection affects mainly microbial communities in local plant tissue, possibly driven by changes in source-sink relationships and host immune status.