Skip to main content
ISMPMI Congress 2025 Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.

Poster

Session: Session 2 Presenting Authors at Posters (Odds)

P-307 - Asian soybean rust disrupts the soybean leaf microbiome

Wednesday, July 16, 2025
13:30 - 15:15  
Location: Confex Hall 3
Plant microbiota functions and intermicrobial interactions
Plant-associated microbial communities are highly dynamic, shifting in response to environmental perturbations. In this work, we investigated how infection of soybean with Asian Soybean Rust (ASR) affects the soybean leaf microbiome. We hypothesized that ASR-infected leaves harbor an altered bacterial community enriched in strains with the ability to antagonize the fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi, the causal agent of ASR. To test this hypothesis, we evaluated the bacterial communities that colonize healthy and infected field-grown soybean leaves via high-throughput sequencing of the 16S ribosomal gene. We found remarkable differences in the bacterial populations inhabiting these leaves and identified taxa that show either higher or lower relative abundance in infected leaves. These results confirm that ASR affects the soybean leaf microbiome. We also isolated bacteria from soybean leaves and roots to assemble a culture collection of ‘soybean-associated bacteria’ (Soybiome). This collection currently consists of 3,038 strains and constitutes a valuable resource for the identification of microorganisms that can exert any kind of beneficial effects on plants. Indeed, initial screenings have revealed strains that can antagonize P. pachyrhizi. The characterization of such strains will pave the way for the development of biofungicides effective against one of the most important plant diseases in soybeans plants