Fungal community associated with genetically modified poplar during metal phytoremediation

Abstract

Due to the increasing demand for phytoremediation, many transgenic poplars have been developed to enhance the bioremediation of heavy metals. However, structural changes to indigenous fungal communities by genetically modified organisms (GMO) presents a major ecological issue, due to the important role of fungi for plant growth in natural environments. To evaluate the effect of GM plant use on environmental fungal soil communities, extensive sequencing-based community analysis was conducted, while controlling the influence of plant clonality, plant age, soil condition, and harvesting season. The rhizosphere soils of GM and wild type (WT) poplars at a range of growth stages were sampled together with unplanted, contaminated soil, and the fungal community structures were investigated by pyrosequencing the D1/D2 region of the 28S rRNA gene. The results show that the overall structure of the rhizosphere fungal community was not significantly influenced by GM poplars. However, the presence of GM specific taxa, and faster rate of community change during poplar growth, appeared to be characteristic of the GM plant-induced effects on soil-born fungal communities. The results of this study provide additional information about the potential effects of GM poplar trees aged 1.5-3 years, on the soil fungal community.

Tracking Fungal Community Responses to Maize Plants by DNA- and RNA-Based Pyrosequencing

“…Although these authors did observe differences between GM plants and their nearly isogenic parental lines, these differences were not greater that those observed between different non-GM cultivars. These previous studies have zoomed in specifically on AMF, yet relatively few studies have examined complete fungal community responses to GM plants [36]–[39], however none of these studies applied next generation sequencing approach as addressed in the current study. Our results indicate that the observed lack of a GM-related effects in our experiment was not caused by a low resolution of our assessment, but rather by weak effects of plant cultivar compared to other community-structuring processes because i) fungal communities of 47 and 104 days of plant growth were clearly distinct, and plant age was the most important explanatory factor of fungal community composition, and ii) we observed clear differences in the fungal community structures as recovered from DNA versus RNA templates.…”

Identifying airborne fungi in Seoul, Korea using metagenomics

“…Amplification of the large subunit (LSU) of nuclear ribosomal DNA was performed using the primers LSU-26F and LSU-657R as described by Hur et al (2012). Primers were barcoded to distinguish each sample prior to sequencing.…”

Effect of the Leaf Litter of Transgenic <i>Populus Simonii P. nigra</i> on the Soil Microbial Community and Horizontal Transfer Possibility of the Foreign Gene

“…Some researchers have stated that the impacts of transgenic plants on microbial community and horizontal gene transfer between transgenic plants and soil bacteria were negligible (Devare et al, 2004;Riglietti et al, 2008). However, Hur et al (2012) reported that transgenic poplar can affect the diversity of indigenous fungal communities during metal Molecular Microbiology Research 2017, Vol.7, No.1, 1-9 http://mmr.biopublisher.ca 2 phytoremediation. In addition, Axelsson et al (2011) revealed that transgenic plants can affect adjacent waterways in unanticipated ways, which could change the composition of the aquatic insect colonies on the leaf litter and increased the average insect abundance.…”