Location: Food and Feed Safety Research
Project Number: 6054-42000-027-019-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jul 13, 2026
End Date: Jul 12, 2027
Objective:
The goal of this collaboration is to evaluate the impact of peptide-mediated aflatoxin resistance on the microbial community of the rhizosphere and maize kernels. The specific objectives are:
1. Characterize changes in the rhizosphere microbial community composition at R2 associated with peptide expression.
2. Characterize the end-of-season rhizosphere community composition and structure following growth of peptide expressing or non-expressing plants.
3. Assess the impact of peptide expression on the microbial community of maize kernels at the time of harvest.
Approach:
1. Working in already established plots, SRRC scientists will collect 1) rhizosphere soil at R2 and, 2) the end of the growing season as well as 3) maize kernels at the end of the growing season. Samples will be collected from 25 plants each for a total of 75 samples.
2. SRRC scientists will extract DNA from rhizosphere samples using the Qiagen DNeasy PowerSoil Pro Kit per the manufacturer's instructions. DNA will be extracted from kernels as described by Lane et al (2018).
3. DNA will be shipped to the Lane Lab at Kansas State University, Department of Agronomy, for microbial community sequencing and subsequent analysis.
4. DNA concentrations will be normalized. All DNA samples will be amplified using universal 16S and ITS primers to validate the samples, purified as necessary, and submitted to the Kansas State University Integrated Genomics Facility for library preparation and Illumina MiSeq sequencing.
5. Following receipt of sequencing data, the Lane Lab will conduct all bioinformatic analyses and report the findings to the SRRC.