the endophytic bacterial diversity in jujube roots infected by jujube witches broom phytoplasma

In this work, we focused on documenting endophytic bacterial community in the root tissues of jujube trees. Nested PCR assays were used to select group JH (Healthy) and group JP (infected with phytoplasma). Afterwards, high-throughput amplicon sequencing and culturable collection were performed to assess bacterial community compositions in root tissues. A total of different 152 OTUs were generated after clustering at a 97% similarity level. The community was composed of seven dominant groups in all samples. The results showed that the microbiomes in the root of jujube from the same sampling position were complex and stable. Statistics showed that The OTU abundance of healthy group was higher than JWB group. The distribution of each dominant phyla between healthy group and JWB group was either varied. 120 OTUs became enriched in the health condition compared with the diseased condition. The other 32 OTUs, mainly members of Fimicutes, were enriched in the diseased condition compared with the health condition.CONCLUSION: As a whole, this study first compares and analyzes the difference of endophytic bacterial community compositions between the jujube plants infected by phytoplasmas and healthy plants. Our results provide insight into the influence of phytoplasma to the complex bacterial composition of the jujube. These results will provide a theoretical basis for biological controlling JWB disease.