Metabarcoding of oomycete and cercozoan communities associated with Arabidopsis thaliana.

Like humans, plants live in close association with microorganisms. Some of these are pathogens or opportunists that degrade plant derived material whereas others live in symbiosis or mutualism with the plant. Specific adaptations exist for endophytes colonizing plant roots or other organs of which some can stimulate plant growth and development or reduce plant stress. In our project, we study the underexplored oomycete and protist microbiome of Brassicaceae using Next Generation Sequencing. We used 18S rDNA and ITS1 metabarcoding combined with multivariate statistics to understand the community patterns detected in leaves and roots of A. thaliana grown in two different soils.