ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1630090
This article is part of the Research TopicMicrobe Empowering Green Agriculture and Boosting Productivity and QualityView all 19 articles
Community composition and diversity analysis of endophytes in extremely spicy industrial chili peppers in Tibet based on high-throughput sequencing
Provisionally accepted
- Tibet University, Lhasa, China
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The capsaicin content of industrial chili peppers is more than 100 times that of common chili peppers; industrial chili peppers are mainly used for industrial processing and capsaicin extraction. Chili peppers are temperature-loving, light-loving, and drought-resistant; thus, the high-altitude climatic conditions of Tibet are suitable for planting them. Endophytes are microorganisms that can live in the bodies of healthy plants at some stage of their life cycle. Endophytes and host plants establish a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship during long-term co-evolution, which assists plants in secondary metabolite production. This study investigated the differences in endophyte community structure among different lines of industrial chili peppers and the relationship between capsaicinoids and endophyte community composition at high-altitude habitats in Tibet using high-throughput sequencing to obtain basic data on industrial chili pepper endophytes. The results showed that the diversity of endophyte communities was characterized by conservatism among groups, and that the composition and community structure of endophyte communities were specific among different groups. Community composition analysis revealed generally consistent dominant phyla of endophytic microorganisms in industrial chili peppers, although differences were seen in the relative abundance percentage. Bacterial community composition at the genus level was less affected by capsaicin concentration under different groups; however, the fungal community composition at the genus level was more responsive to capsaicinoid concentrations than that of bacteria. Bacterial communities from four different chili pepper varieties showed significantly different enrichment of genera. Fungi were differentially enriched only in the td1 group with high capsaicin concentrations, and in the sylj group with low capsaicin concentrations. Among the four groups, endophytic bacteria had the most significant percentage of genes associated with unknown functions while fungal trophic patterns had the most significant percentage of unknown trophic types. Overall, this study provides an important reference for the efficient cultivation and utilization of industrial chili peppers in Tibet.
Keywords: Industrial chili peppers, Capsaicin, high-throughput sequencing, Microbial community diversity, microbial community composition
Received: 16 May 2025; Accepted: 29 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yin, Zhang, Wang, Luo, Li, Zhao, Cao, Liu and Ma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yixuan Liu, Tibet University, Lhasa, China
Hongmei Ma, Tibet University, Lhasa, China
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