Tomato soil-borne diseases may cause around 10-20% yield loss annually. Due to intensive cultivation and climate change, infectious cases are increasing. Recent studies have shown that adjusting root microbes may benefit the crops to become more resilient to environmental change. Therefore, this project aims to conduct a metagenomics analysis of the cultivation soil from tomato root-knot nematode-resistant and susceptible genotype lines. By analyzing the differences between the root microbiome, we wish to screen possible molecular targets and isolate the core microbes which could benefit the tomato growth. At present, the sequence analysis of 16S rDNA amplicons from soil samples has been conducted. The OUT heatmap and Venn diagram have been performed to reveal the abundance of OTU as well as the similarity and difference across samples. At the same time, box plots, unifrac distance matrix, PCA analysis, Anosim analysis, Metastats, and LefSe analysis were performed to compare the diversity and differences between groups. Moreover, the isolation of rhizosphere microbes from root-knot nematode resistant genotype tomato plants was also conducted.

▲Fig.1. Comparison of the soil community structures in the mesocosm experiment based on pyrosequencing of 16S rDNA amplicons.

▲Fig.2 Isolation of rhizosphere microorganisms from root-knot nematode resistant genotype tomato plants.