Order among chaos: High throughput MYCroplanters can distinguish interacting drivers of host infection in a highly stochastic system

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1012894
• Publication Date: 2025-02-11T18:36:58Z
• Authors: Melissa Y. Chen; Leah M. Fulton; Ivie Huang; Aileen Liman; Sarzana S. Hossain; Corri D. Hamilton; Siyu Song; Quentin Geissmann; Kayla C. King; Cara H. Haney
• Keywords: QH301-705.5; Immunologic diseases. Allergy; RC581-607; Biology (General)

The likelihood that a host will be susceptible to infection is influenced by the interaction of diverse biotic and abiotic factors. As result, substantial experimental replication scalability are required identify contributions interactions between host, environment, factors such as microbiome. For example, pathogen success known vary genotype, bacterial strain identity dose, dose. Elucidating these in vivo has been challenging because testing combinations variables quickly becomes experimentally intractable. Here, we describe novel high throughput plant growth system (MYCroplanters) test how multiple non-pathogenic bacteria, predict health. Using an Arabidopsis- Pseudomonas host-microbe model, found genotype order arrival susceptibility infection, but dose can overwhelm effects. Host therefore driven complex both mask compensate for each other. However, regardless or inoculation conditions, ratio non-pathogen emerged consistent correlate disease. Our results demonstrate high-throughput tools like MYCroplanters isolate interacting drivers Increasing scale at which screen disease, microbiome community structure, facilitate disease predictions treatments medicine agricultural applications.