Hubiao Jiang, Changxin Li, Xuefang Huang, Temoor Ahmed, Solabomi Olaitan Ogunyemi, Shanhong Yu, Xiao Wang, Hayssam M Ali, Fahad Khan, Chengqi Yan, Jianping Chen, Bin Li

Front Plant Sci.; 2023 Apr 19; 14:1147351. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1147351.

Abstract

Rice bacterial leaf blight (BLB) is the most destructive bacterial diseases caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo). Phages have been proposed as a green and efficient strategy to kill bacterial pathogens in crops, however, the mechanism of action of phages in the control of phyllosphere bacterial diseases remain unclear. Here, the glasshouse pot experiment results showed that phage combination could reduce the disease index by up to 64.3%. High-throughput sequencing technology was used to analyze the characteristics of phyllosphere microbiome changes and the results showed that phage combinations restored the impact of pathogen invasion on phyllosphere communities to a certain extent, and increased the diversity of bacterial communities. In addition, the phage combination reduced the relative abundance of epiphytic and endophytic Xoo by 58.9% and 33.9%, respectively. In particular, Sphingomonas and Stenotrophomonas were more abundant. According to structural equation modeling, phage combination directly and indirectly affected the disease index by affecting pathogen Xoo biomass and phage resistance. In summary, phage combination could better decrease the disease index. These findings provide new insights into phage biological control of phyllosphere bacterial diseases, theoretical data support, and new ideas for agricultural green prevention and control of phyllosphere diseases.

See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37152174/

Figure 2

Effects of phage combination on the alpha diversity of epiphytic (A, B) and endophytic (C, D) bacterial communities. Alpha diversity is characterized based on the Chao1 index. Based on the Kruskal-Wallis test, different letters indicates significant differences at P < 0.05. CK, Control; C2, Xoo strain alone; 23E, Xoo phages (J2+J3+E); C223E, Xoo strain C2 + Xoo phages (J2+J3+E).