Variation in a microbial mutualist has transcriptional and phenotypic consequences for host–parasite interactions
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Strains of microbial symbionts often vary in their effect on their host. However, little is known about how the genetic variation in microbial symbiont populations impacts host interactions with other co‐colonizing microbes. We investigated how different strains of nitrogen‐fixing rhizobial bacteria affect their host plant's response to parasitic root‐knot nematodes in the legume Medicago truncatula. Using dual RNA‐Seq of the root organs harbouring rhizobia or nematodes, we identified genes from the plant host, rhizobia and nematode whose expression differed between parasite‐infected and ‐uninfected plants, and between plants inoculated with different rhizobial strains. At the site of host–parasite interactions (in nematode galls), hundreds of host genes and a few nematode genes differed in expression between host plants inoculated with different rhizobia strains. At the site of host–mutualist interactions (in rhizobia nodules), hundreds of host genes and a few rhizobial genes responded to parasite infection. The vast majority of parasite‐induced changes in host gene expression depended on the resident rhizobia strain. We additionally observed differences in parasite load and in some root architecture traits between plants inoculated with different rhizobia strains, showing that genetic variation in a mutualistic symbiont impacted parasite colonization. The transcriptomic and phenotypic differences we observed suggest that microbial indirect genetic effects play an underappreciated role in their host's interactions with other co‐colonizing microorganisms. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".