Raman-Deuterium Isotope Probing and Metagenomics Reveal the Drought Tolerance of the Soil Microbiome and Its Promotion of Plant Growth
Jee Hyun No, Susmita Das Nishu, Jin‐Kyung Hong, Eun Sun Lyou, Min Sung Kim, Gui Nam Wee, Tae Kwon Lee
Abstract
Soil microbiome has played a critical role in the plant survival during drought. However, the drought tolerance of soil microbiome and its ability to promote plant growth under drought is still scarcely studied. In this study, we identified the Raman signature (i.e., phenotype) of drought effects from drought-tolerant bacteria in agricultural soil samples using Raman-deuterium isotope probing (Raman-DIP). Moreover, the number of drought-tolerant cells measured by Raman-DIP was highly related to the survival rate of plant cultivation under drought and the abundance of genes encoding phytohormone production alleviating drought stress in plant. These results suggest Raman-DIP is a promising technology for measuring drought tolerance of soil microbiome. This result give us important insight into further studies of a reliable link between phenotype and genotype of soil microbiome for future plant-bacteria interaction research.