ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Pathogen Interactions
The role of quorum sensing in rhizosphere community regulation during bacterial wilt pathogen invasion
Provisionally accepted
Bin Zhang1Yanyu Liu2Deying Zhou3Yuangang Lv4Mingfeng Cao5Hengli Li5Zhaoyue Yang2
Zhenghua Liu2
Huaqun Yin2Xichun Wang3*Zhihua Huang6*
Delong Meng2*- 1Hunan University of Science and Engineering College of Chemistry and Bioengineering, Yongzhou, China
- 2Central South University School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Changsha, China
- 3Yongzhou Company of Hunan Tobacco Company, Yongzhou, China
- 4Yongzhou Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Yongzhou, China
- 5Changde Tobacco Company of Hunan Province, Changde, China
- 6Yuxi Company of Yunnan Tobacco Corporation, Yuxi, China
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Bacterial wilt, caused by the soil-borne pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum is a major threat to solanaceous crops worldwide. The onset of this disease is frequently associated with disruptions in the rhizosphere microbial community. Quorum sensing (QS), a key mechanism for microbial communication, plays a critical role in regulating microbial interactions and maintaining community structure. However, whether and how QS is involved in reshaping the rhizosphere microbiome during R. Solanacearum infection remains poorly understood. In this study we compared QS-related genes, signaling pathways, and network structures in metagenomes of healthy and wilt-infected rhizospheres. The results show QS-related genes of the plant beneficial bacterial were significantly down-regulate, whereas QS-related genes of pathogenic R. Solanacearum were up-regulated in wilt-infected rhizosphere. The up-regulated QS genes of pathogens belong to eight QS signaling pathways (AI-1, GABA, PapR, NprX, Phr, cCF10, and DSF). Network analysis showed a simplified structure in the wilt-infected rhizosphere. It is also found the number of connectors in the QS gene co-occurrence network was reduced in wilt-infected rhizosphere network. This is due to the upregulation of QS system allows the pathogen to mediate the rhizosphere microbial ecology network, and leads to destabilization of rhizosphere community. These findings demonstrate that QS system contributes to bacterial wilt infection by suppressing the QS-based interactions among plant beneficial microbes, thereby triggering community function disruption.
Keywords: Bacterial wilt, Metagenomic, microbial communication, Quorum Sensing, Rhizosphere microbiome
Received: 13 Aug 2025; Accepted: 29 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Zhang, Liu, Zhou, Lv, Cao, Li, Yang, Liu, Yin, Wang, Huang and Meng. 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:
Xichun Wang
Zhihua Huang
Delong Meng
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