Endophtyic microbial diversity on latex bearing cell sap of Hevea brasiliensis (rubber tree)

Rubber trees are a commercial cash crop, and the milky latex or polyisoprene they produce is the natural source of rubber. Little is known about the bacterial populations found in active zone of latex-producing cell sap. We employed a tailored-based cloud microbial bioinformatic approach to identify, diversity, and potential ecological roles of an uncultured endophytic hidden bacterial community in the active zone of latex-producing cell sap of the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis). Small pieces of slivers were collected from healthy plant from the village: Belonia, South Tripura, rubber plantation in northeastern India. These uncultured bacteria were identified utilising the V3-V4 hypervariable amplicon region of the 16S rDNA gene. A total of 209586 contigs have been generated. We detected 15 phyla and 91 OTUs (operational taxonomic units). Proteobacteria (73.5%) was the most enriched phylum, followed by Firmicutes (13.8%), Bacteroidetes (5.2%), and Actinobacteria (3.2%). Furthermore, Gammaproteobacteria (49.2%) and Erwinia (29.19%) were the most abundant classes and genera of endophytic bacterial communities. Thus, the presence of a substantial amount of phosphate-solubilizing Gammaproteobacteria (PSB) in latex-producing cell sap may aid in rubber and sugar breakdown.