TY - JOUR AU - Zolti, Avihai AU - Green, Stefan J. AU - Sela, Noa AU - Hadar, Yitzhak AU - Minz, Dror PY - 2020 DA - 2020/05/21 TI - The microbiome as a biosensor: functional profiles elucidate hidden stress in hosts JO - Microbiome SP - 71 VL - 8 IS - 1 AB - Microbial communities are highly responsive to environmental cues, and both their structure and activity can be altered in response to changing conditions. We hypothesized that host-associated microbial communities, particularly those colonizing host surfaces, can serve as in situ sensors to reveal environmental conditions experienced by both microorganisms and the host. For a proof-of-concept, we studied a model plant-soil system and employed a non-deterministic gene-centric approach. A holistic analysis was performed using plants of two species and irrigation with water of low quality to induce host stress. Our analyses examined the genetic potential (DNA) and gene expression patterns (RNA) of plant-associated microbial communities, as well as transcriptional profiling of host plants. SN - 2049-2618 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-020-00850-9 DO - 10.1186/s40168-020-00850-9 ID - Zolti2020 ER -