近年来，国际巨头孟山都公司与诺维信集团合作组建生物农业联盟（The BioAg Alliance），运行农业微生物研究项目，开发下一代的农业微生物产品。项目主要内容为利用自然界中天然存在的微生物（包括细菌和真菌）开发微生物菌剂，用于促进农作物营养吸收或作物病虫害防治。
最近，南京农业大学的Alexandre Jousse和韦中老师向我们介绍了如何在育种过程中将植物与微生物的互作关系考虑进来，建立以培育植物微生物共生体为目标的育种理念。这种理念要求在性状筛选上加入微生物的因素，这将对传统的育种理念和流程带来极大的冲击。
Trends in Plant Science, 2017 June 4
Plant breeding goes microbial
Author
Zhong Wei, Alexandre Jousset*
*: Jiangsu Provincial Key Lab for Organic Solid Waste Utilization, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center for Solid Organic Waste Resource Utilization, National Engineering Research Center for Organic-based Fertilizers, Nanjing Agricultural University, China; Institute of Environmental Biology, Ecology & Biodiversity, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Abstract
Plant breeding has traditionally improved traits encoded in the plant genome. Here we propose an alternative framework reaching novel phenotypes by modifying together genomic information and plant-associated microbiota. This concept is made possible by a novel technology that enables the transmission of endophytic microbiota to the next plant generation.
