ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbial Symbioses
This article is part of the Research TopicInteractions Between Medicinal Plants and Microbes: From Molecules to EcosystemView all 3 articles
Trehalose-Mediated Rhizosphere Microbiota Reshaping Drives the Development of Tea Root Rot Disease
Provisionally accepted
Qiang Zhu1
Bowen Chen2Weiting Hu3Yingbo Huang2Shengyuan Wang3Mei Feng3Jie Zhao3Mingyi Yu3Mingzhu Li3Xuejiao Gong2*- 1Tea Research Institute, Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Chengdu, China; Guizhou Institute of Technology, Guiyang, China
- 2Tea Research Institute, Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Chengdu, China
- 3Guizhou Institute of Technology, Guiyang, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze) is one of the most economically important crops and as a traditional medicinal plant in the world. The long-term continuous cropping and inappropriate management have led to frequent outbreaks of soil-borne diseases such as root rot, which pose a serious threat to the sustainable development of the tea industry. However, the pathogenesis of tea root rot remains poorly understood. In this study, two novel pathogen fungi, Paraconiothyrium cyclothyrioides F8 and Apiotrichum sporotrichoides F17, were isolated and identified from diseased tea roots. Microbiome analysis revealed significant restructuring of the rhizosphere microbial community in diseased tea plants, with a significant reduction in the abundance of Basidiomycota and marked enrichment of pathogen such as Fusarium and Apiotrichum. Meanwhile, the abundances of beneficial fungi (e.g., Saitozyma and Trichoderma) and bacteria (e.g., Bacillus and Sporosarcina) were significantly decreased. Further investigation demonstrated that root exudate trehalose exhibited prominent bidirectional regulatory effect through promoted the growth of pathogen, while simultaneously inhibiting biofilm formation, rhizosphere colonization at specific concentrations and weakened the biocontrol functions of the beneficial antagonistic bacteria Sporosarcina pasteurii T21 and Lysinibacillus sp. T23, facilitating the formation of a rhizosphere chemical environment that "aids enemies and harms allies" and thereby exacerbating disease occurrence. This study emphasized the dominant role of plant metabolites such as trehalose in driving the assembly of rhizosphere microbial communities from a disease-suppressive to a disease-conducive state, as well as in disease development. The findings provide a novel theoretical perspective for the microbiological regulation of tea root rot and offer theoretical and practical bases for tea root rot disease green prevention and control.
Keywords: biocontrol, Rhizosphere microbial community, root exudates, Tea root rot disease, Trehalose
Received: 14 Jan 2026; Accepted: 06 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Zhu, Chen, Hu, Huang, Wang, Feng, Zhao, Yu, Li and Gong. 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: Xuejiao Gong
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.