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Abstract. The wheat phyllosphere supports diverse microbial communities, yet the viral life-history strategies that enable persistence in this dynamic habi

From farm to fork, lettuce carries billions of microorganisms that change with the seasons. New research links these leaf-dwelling microbes to greater gut bacterial diversity, raising questions about how fresh vegetables may influence our microbiome. Study: Seasonal dynamics in lettuce phyllosphere microbiota and potential transfer to the human gut. Image credit: Kmpzzz/Shutterstock.com A recent study published online in the journal npj Science of Food suggests that lettuce may provide bacteria and fungi that could reach the human gut, with possible implications for gut microbial composition and diversity. Fresh lettuce carries microbes that might reach the gut Modern Western lifestyles are linked to lower gut microbiome diversity, partly through reduced contact with environmental microbes. Research on how plant foods affect the gut has focused mostly on dietary fiber, which provides fermentable substrates for beneficial gut microbiota. However, fresh plant foods also supply live microbes. The leaf surface of fresh vegetables, also called the phyllosphere, carries a large and varied microbial community with seasonal differences, as shown by earlier in-field studies. This study examined whether these differences persisted on retail lettuce after post-harvest processing, whether lettuce-associated microbes also appeared in human gut microbiome datasets, and how their presence might relate to resident...

【World J Microbiol Biotechnol】The "cry for help" hypothesis suggests that herbivore-stressed plants reshape their microbiome for d

Evolution of nutrient cross-feeding between a yeast and oomycete mediates microbial coexistence and leaf microbiome stability.

A European-scale field survey identifies conserved microbial interactions in the A. thaliana phyllosphere To identify conserved interactions in the A. thaliana phyllosphere microbiome, we conducted a continent-scale survey across western, middle and northern Europe to capture the maximum microbial diversity. We collected 347 plants from 15 sites harbouring natural A. thaliana populations in Spain, France, Germany and Sweden (Fig. 1a). We performed marker gene amplicon sequencing on bacteria (16S), fungi (ITS2), oomycete (ITS1) and other eukaryotes (18S), using half of the plant material as ‘whole-leaf microbiota’ samples and surface sterilizing the other half to obtain the endophytic microbiota. Since species-level resolution was not consistently achievable for ITS and 18S markers, and because our goal was to identify conserved ecological structure, we used operational taxonomic unit (OTU) clustering as a harmonized framework for multikingdom analysis. On the basis of OTU classification, we found that microbial alpha diversities (Shannon index) were comparable across different sampling sites (Fig. 1b for endophytes and Extended Data Fig. 1a for whole leaf). However, beta-diversity analyses, including principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) and multivariate dispersion tests, revealed significant differences in microbial community composition and within-region variation across the four geographical regions (Fig. 1c and Extended Data Fig. 1b–d)...

Multicellular organisms require a correct microbiota composition for optimal health and fitness. Dysbiosis could lead to serious health consequences in humans and plants, and is pervasive during patho...