Actinobacteria from Leontopodium Nivale Subspecies Alpinum Rhizosphere and Their Relation to the Host’s Actinobacterial Endophyte Community. Actinobacteria associated to Edelweiss

The rhizosphere of plants is enriched in nutrients that support the growth of microorganisms, some of which are recruited as endophytes. Endophytes produce a plethora of bioactive compounds, especially among members of Actinobacteria. We aimed to identify Actinobacteria associated with the plant Leontopodium nivale subsp. alpinum, known as Edelweiss, which has been used in Europe as a medicinal plant since centuries. Rhizosphere soil of plants from the Austrian Alps was used for isolation of Actinobacteria. In parallel, Edelweiss plants from the same location were surface-sterilized, separated into leaves, roots, rhizomes and inflorescence and pooled within tissues before genomic DNA extraction. Metagenomic amplicons confirmed large numbers of actinobacterial OTUs descending in diversity from roots to rhizomes, leaves and inflorescences. Submitted data represent metagenomic data on Actinobacteria diversity, whereby each tissue is represented by two raw data files (1, 2).