Musa endophytic microbiomes

Microbiomes are critical to plants, but remain poorly characterized. The endosphere of banana (Musa spp.) is important because banana and plantain are critical crops for global food security, while also being critically threatened by pandemic diseases. Domestication and clonal propagation are thought to have depleted protective microbiomes, whereas wild relatives may hold promise for new microbiome-based biological controls. The goal was to compare metapangenomes enriched from 7 Musa genotypes, including wild and cultivated varieties grown in sympatry, to assess the host role in driving root and leaf endosphere functional profiles.