Alkanna tinctoria metagenome studies

The uncultivable bacterial and fungal microbiome of Alkanna tinctoria L., a medicinally and industrially interesting plant producing alkannin/shikonin in its root system. We performed next generation sequencing on DNA from root samples to obtain microbial diversity information used for correlation and network analysis with the metabolomic data of the root system. Thus we gained new insights on the possible interactions and links between the plant microbiome and metabolome, while also confirming and discovering the microbial diversity of different plant developmental stages and the impact of different soil microbiomes on the plant.