Arabidopsis Root RNA-Seq

Microbial promotion of plant growth has great potential to improve agricultural yields and protect plants against pathogens and/or abiotic stresses, while also relieving economic and environmental costs of crop production. Research on several Mortierellaceae species have been published this past decade, however, the extent of the plant growth promotion (PGP) phenotype(s) and the underlying mechanism(s) of association are still not well understood. In this study, we focused on the symbiosis between soil fungus Linnemannia elongata and Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0, as both organisms have reference genomes and transcriptomes available, and their lifestyles and growth requirements are conducive to research conditions. We measured Arabidopsis aerial growth at early and late life stages, seed production, and used mRNA sequencing to characterize differentially expressed plant genes in response to fungal inoculation.