abstract
in terrestrial ecosystems, plant leaves provide the largest biological habitat for highly diverse microbial communities, known as the phyllosphere microbiota. however, the underlying mechanisms of host-driven assembly of these ubiquitous communities remain largely elusive. here, we conduct a large-scale and in-depth assessment of the rice phyllosphere microbiome aimed at identifying specific host-microbe links. a genome-wide association study reveals a strong association between the plant genotype and members of four bacterial orders, pseudomonadales, burkholderiales, enterobacterales and xanthomonadales. some of the associations are specific to a distinct host genomic locus, pathway or even gene. the compound 4-hydroxycinnamic acid (4-hca) is identified as the main driver for enrichment of bacteria belonging to pseudomonadales. 4-hca can be synthesized by the host plant’s ospal02 from the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway. a knockout mutant of ospal02 results in reduced pseudomonadales abundance, dysbiosis of the phyllosphere microbiota and consequently higher susceptibility of rice plants to disease. our study provides a direct link between a specific plant metabolite and rice phyllosphere homeostasis opening possibilities for new breeding strategies.
nature communications，if=16.6
