ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Symbiotic Interactions
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1589266
This article is part of the Research TopicEngineering Plant-Microbiomes to Improve the Health of Economic CropsView all 4 articles
Better than one: a synthetic community of Gram-positive bacteria protects pepper plants from aphid infestation through de novo volatile production
Provisionally accepted
- Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), Daejeon, Republic of Korea
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Soil microbes offer various benefits to plants, including pathogen defense and growth promotion, with some functioning as biocontrol agents. Although the role of microbial consortium in microbiota function was recently elucidated, the production of a specific determinant through microbial cooperation for protection against insect infestation has not been demonstrated to date. Here, we report that a synthetic community (SynCom) comprising four Gram-positive bacteria could protect pepper plants from aphid infestation under greenhouse and field conditions. Headspace solid-phase microextraction-gas chromatography mass spectrometry analysis of the determinants produced by the four bacteria during co-cultivation led to the de novo detection of a volatile compound, 1-nonanol. Drench application of 1 mM 1-nonanol reduced aphid infestation. Taken together, our results suggest that SynCom and its volatile compound can effectively attenuate insect infestation. This is the first case study demonstrating how a volatile compound synthesized in the rhizosphere soil by bacteria protects plants against invasion by a sucking insect pest.
Keywords: rhizobacteria, Plant Immunity, biological control, Volatile, aphid, pepper
Received: 07 Mar 2025; Accepted: 05 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ryu, Yang, Lee, Kong and Riu. 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: Choong-Min Ryu, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), Daejeon, 305-806, Republic of Korea
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