Microbiomes of medicinal plants and their potential avenues as bioresources – A review

Abstract

Sustainable enhancement in bioactive production of medicinal plants must encompass a balanced use of inorganic, organic, and biofertilizer sources of plant nutrients to augment and maintain soil fertility, productivity and quantity. This necessitates an intricate analysis of the inter-relationships between microbial communities and their impact on host plant productivity. A large variety of fungi and bacteria is recognized in phyllosphere, endosphere and rhizosphere of medicinal plant that showed significant effect in secondary metabolite alteration and uptake of plant nutrients. Significant phytotherapeutic compounds are actually produced by associated microbes through interaction with their host plant which lead to recognition of microbe and plant interaction. In modern medicine and agriculture, medicinal plant are considered rich bioresources yet their ecological role of microbiome is unexplored. Plant-associated microbes form holobiont which is responsible for the beneficial interplay of the host and its microbiome by maintaining host plant fitness, health, nutrition and increased tolerance to abiotic stresses, adaptation to environmental variations promotion of the establishment of mycorrhizal association. Some genera are ubiquitous and can be found distributed over the entire plant, such as the well-known plant-associated genera Bacillus and Pseudomonas. The objective of this review is to introduce insights into plant-microbe interaction in medicinal plants