Pereira, C. G. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2025

Breeding of microbiomes conferring salt tolerance to plants

Microbiome breeding by host-mediated selection is a technique to artificially select for microbiomes conferring benefits to plants. Here, we describe leaf ionomics, microbial community composition, and network analyses of a microbiome-breeding experiment to generate microbiomes conferring salt tolerance to Brachypodium distachyon, a model for cereal crops. Plants receiving microbiomes selected to confer tolerance to either sodium- or aluminium-stress produced 69-198% higher total seed weight than plants receiving control microbiomes. Sodium-selected microbiomes reduced leaf-sodium concentration by 50%, whereas aluminium-selected microbiomes had no effect on leaf-tissue nutrient concentration, suggesting different mechanisms underlying microbiome-mediated salt tolerance. By testing these selected microbiomes in a cross-fostering experiment, we show that artificially-selected microbiomes attain (a) ecological robustness contributing to transplantability (inheritance) of microbiome-encoded effects between plants; and (b) network features identifying key bacteria promoting stress tolerance. Combined, these findings elucidate critical mechanisms underlying host-mediated selection as a tool to breed beneficial microbiomes in an agricultural context.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Cooperative efforts on developing vaccines and therapies for COVID-19

Health organizations have always sought partnership to join competencies in innovation, even with fierce competition in this sector. In this pandemic moment it is relevant to observe how organizations behave to seek quick and safe answers. The present research analyzes how the cooperation networks were set off considering the clinical trials on therapies and vaccines that were developed specifically to treat or prevent COVID-19. Social Network Analysis technique was used to build cooperation networks and apply metrics that characterize these connections. There was an evaluation of statistics of Strength of cooperation and Unilateral dependence of cooperation that identify the cooperation strength between two organizations, and the dependence of this relations. A total of 415 clinical trial were identified, of which 42% are in cooperation. From organizations that have partnership, firms are the first, followed by universities. We extracted the main categories that concentrate 74% of partnerships in the trials of antibody, and vaccine. Several organizations cooperate in multiple categories of trials, evidencing the efforts to focus on different strategies to treat the disease. We found high strength of cooperation and an assimetryc dependency between partners, which can be assigned to specialized models of partnership and it occurs in competitive enviroments like this pandemic moment. Cooperation were not limited to geographical proximity and the advent of Chinese players can represent a new change in the biotechnological development axis. Finally, the challenge of finding therapeutic or immunological solutions for COVID-19 demonstrates a clear composition of cooperation groups that complement their skills to manage organizational strategies to beat the pandemic. In this new paradigm, there can be partnerships not only in clinical trial but also in pre-competitive technologies development. This experience is expected to change the way of organizations define their R&D strategies and start to adopt more a collaborative innovation model.

scientific communication and education↗