Synthetic Transkingdom Signalling in Cereal Rhizosphere

Signal communication between plants and microbes in rhizosphere influence the dynamics of root microbial communities that affect plant health. A new approach in rhizosphere engineering to improve plant productivity is engineering a synthetic trans-kingdom signalling in roots to control gene expression in beneficial rhizobacteria during abiotic or biotic stress conditions.

I will present our work done on engineering a synthetic rhizopine biosynthesis pathway in cereals to establish trans-kingdom signalling between rhizopine producing plants and engineered bacteria (Geddes et. al 2019). Rhizopine mediated synthetic cross-kingdom signalling allow cereal plants to control delivery of beneficial functions by root-associated bacteria. Further work in our lab focus on engineering an inducible expression system in plants to regulate rhizopine production and signalling during stress conditions and control delivery of useful services such as nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilisation and anti-fungal metabolite production in rhizobacteria.