Heritable differences in abundance of bacterial rhizosphere taxa are correlated with fungal necrotrophic pathogen resistance

Host-microbe interactions are increasingly recognized as important drivers of organismal health, growth, longevity, and community-scale ecological processes. However, less is known about how genetic variation affects hosts' associated microbiomes and downstream phenotypes. We demonstrate that sunflower Helianthus annuus harbors substantial, heritable variation in microbial communities under field conditions. We show that microbial communities co-vary with heritable variation in resistance to root infection caused by the necrotrophic pathogen Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, and that plants grown in autoclaved soil showed almost complete elimination of pathogen resistance. Association mapping suggests at least 59 genetic locations with effects on both microbial relative abundance and Sclerotinia resistance. Although the genetic architecture appears quantitative, we have elucidated previously unexplained genetic variation for resistance to this pathogen. We identify new targets for plant breeding and demonstrate the potential for heritable microbial associations to play important roles in defense in natural and human-altered environments.This SRA submission includes the 94 sunflower paired-end sequencing FASTQ files as well as the corresponding 16S bacterial FASTQ files.宿主-微生物互作（host-microbe interactions）日益被认为是驱动生物体健康、生长、寿命及群落尺度生态过程的重要调控因素。然而，目前学界对遗传变异如何影响宿主相关微生物组及其下游表型的认知仍较为有限。本研究证实，田间条件下向日葵（Helianthus annuus）的微生物群落存在显著且可遗传的变异。研究发现，微生物群落与宿主对死体营养型病原菌核盘菌（Sclerotinia sclerotiorum）引发的根系侵染的抗性可遗传变异呈共变关系；而在灭菌土壤中种植的植株，其病原菌抗性几乎完全丧失。关联作图（association mapping）分析显示，至少存在59个遗传位点同时对微生物相对丰度及核盘菌抗性具有调控效应。尽管该遗传结构看似属于数量遗传范畴，但本研究阐明了此前尚未被解析的该病原菌抗性相关遗传变异。本研究鉴定出了植物育种的全新靶点，并证实了可遗传微生物关联在自然及人为改造环境中于植物防御过程发挥重要作用的潜力。本次提交至序列读取存档（Sequence Read Archive，SRA）的数据包含94份向日葵双端测序FASTQ文件，以及对应的16S细菌测序FASTQ文件。