(A) Alphaproteobacteria B) actinobacteria C) Gammaproteobacteria D) Betaproteobacteria. Pseudowintera colorata (Horopito) â an endemic New. Zealand ...
Author(s) Neeraj Purushotham1, Eirian Jones1, Jana Monk2 and Hayley Ridgway1
Analysing the endomicrobiome of New Zealand’s medicinal plant Pseudowintera colorata
1Faculty
of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Lincoln University, PO Box 85084, Lincoln University, Lincoln 7647, New Zealand 2AgResearch, Lincoln 7647, Canterbury, New Zealand
Results
Objectives To study the structure of the horopito endomicrobiome and identify: • an endomicrobiome independent of site • members of the endomicrobiome affected by site and host physiology
Introduction Pseudowintera colorata (Horopito) – an endemic New Zealand medicinal plant is recognised for its bioactive properties (Fig. 1A). The main biologically active chemical constituent polygodial is used in treating candidiasis (Fig. 1B). International research suggests that medicinal plants may harbour unique endophytes, producing the same, or similar, bioactive compounds as the host plant.
• Plant tissue (Fig. 3) was the main factor influencing endophyte communities (Table 1) and microbial richness (Table 2) across all groups • Plant location influenced the actinobacterial communities in leaf and stem • Interaction of plant tissue with location influenced microbial communities across all groups except Gammaproteobacteria A
B
C
D
B
Fig. 3: Non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) plot showing microbial communities in horopito plant tissues (A) Alphaproteobacteria B) actinobacteria C) Gammaproteobacteria D) Betaproteobacteria Table 1: Effect of location and plant tissue on the similarity of the endophytic microbial community in horopito identified using DGGE †
Fig. 1: A) Horopito Plant
Microbial communities similarity
B) Polygodial
Total actinobacteria Alphaproteobacteria Betaproteobacteria Gammaproteobacteria Fungi
Treatment
Materials and Methods 1. Plants collected from 10 sites across New Zealand (Fig. 2A). 2. DNA extracted from surface sterilized tissues was amplified using primers for actinobacteria, Alpha, Beta, Gammaproteobacteria and total fungi. 3. The amplicons were separated using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) (Fig. 2B).
A
Location Plant tissue Location vs Plant tissue
0.007* 0.001** 0.002**
0.323 0.001** 0.021*
0.149 0.001** 0.001**
0.312 0.001** 0.1
0.081 0.001** 0.002**
Table 2: Effect of location and plant tissue of horopito on the microbial richness identified using DGGE †
