Plant phyllosphere (above-ground parts of plants, e.g. leaf) microbiome contains compositionally complex communities specific for their colonization. By sequencing a leaf’s RNA, we can assign taxonomic classification to each microbe as an approach to fast track and monitor pathogen outbreak.
Traditional method relies on the 16S/18S/ITS amplicon-based sequencing to understand the microbiome composition and diversity within the plant community. Alternatively, we may build an efficient bioinformatics pipeline to assign taxonomic classification to each microbe. Moreoever, I propose to investigate the differences of microbiome composition in crop species sampled in different times and different locations.
The microbiome composition can be correlated with host gene expression to build a baseline model, which can be used to predict the crop health.
Preliminary results from my ongoing study ….
