Endophytic Bacteria: Microbial Ecology, Genomic Analysis and Biotechnological Applications

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

Manuscripts should be submitted via our online editorial system at https://imr.propub.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to start your submission. Manuscripts can be submitted now or up until the deadline. All papers will go through peer-review process. Accepted papers will be published in the journal (as soon as accepted) and meanwhile listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, reviews as well as short communications are preferred. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office to announce on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. Please visit the Instruction for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) in this open access journal is 2500 USD. Submitted manuscripts should be well formatted in good English.