Rice <i>SST</i> Variation Shapes the Rhizosphere Bacterial Community, Conferring Tolerance to Salt Stress through Regulating Soil Metabolites
Tengxiang Lian, Yingyong Huang, Xianan Xie, Xing Huo, Muhammad Qasim Shahid, Lei Tian, Tao Lan, Jing Jin
Abstract
Soil salinization is one of the major environmental stresses limiting crop productivity. Crops in agricultural ecosystems have developed various strategies to adapt to salt stress. We used rice mutant and CRISPR-edited lines to investigate the relationships among the S quamosa promoter B inding P rotein box (SBP box) family gene ( SST / OsSPL10 ), soil metabolites, and the rhizosphere bacterial community. We found that during salt stress, there are significant differences in the rhizosphere bacterial community and soil metabolites between the plants with the SST gene and those without it. Our findings provide a useful paradigm for revealing the roles of key genes of plants in shaping rhizosphere microbiomes and their relationships with soil metabolites and offer new insights into strategies to enhance rice tolerance to high salt levels from microbial and ecological perspectives.