Dear Colleagues,

Endophytic bacteria can beneficially influence plant growth and health, by facilitating the acquisition of nutrients, modulating the levels of phytohormones, and inducing systemic resistance in their host. A plant microbiome can therefore enhance plant resistance and resilience against unfavorable environmental conditions. Furthermore, they can influence a plant’s secondary metabolism, and/or directly synthesize molecules with biological activities that might be useful in various biotechnological applications for human well-being, protection of ecosystems, and sustainable use of resources. Bacterial infections are regulated by the activation of specific molecular processes in both plants and microorganisms; however, little is known about the selective forces driving the assembly and evolution of endophytic microbial communities in different plant species and/or plant organs.

The availability of multi-omics techniques offers the possibility to accumulate data at an unprecedented depth to unravel the mechanisms in plant–microbiota interactions. However, a stronger integration of plant-associated microbiome data with plant physiological and metabolic processes is needed to increase our understanding of cross-species interactions in complex biological systems.
This Special Issue aims to collect Research and Review papers leading to a better understanding of the multifaceted and complex relationship between plants and their associated microbiome.

Papers dealing with the following research topics are particularly welcome:

Biodiversity of endophytic microbiomes in normal and “extreme” plant environments
Microbiome functional diversity in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum
Plant microbiome assembly and selection of driving forces
Transcriptomic studies of plant-endophytic microbiome interactions
The role of endophytic bacteria in the biosynthesis of bioactive molecules
Microbe-mediated biotic and abiotic stress resistance in plants and PGP mechanisms
Genomics and comparative genomics of endophytic bacteria
Biotechnological applications of endophytic isolates and/or consortia

Prof. Dr. Renato Fani, Dr. Giovanni Emiliani and Dr. Giulia Semenzato

Guest Editors