The viable community of microorganisms in the rhizosphere significantly impacts the physiological development and vitality of plants. The assembly and functional capacity of the rhizosphere microbiome are greatly influenced by various factors within the rhizosphere. The primary factors are the host plant genotype, developmental stage and status, soil properties, and resident microbiota. These factors drive the composition, dynamics, and activity of the rhizosphere microbiome. This review addresses the intricate interplay between these factors and how it facilitates the recruitment of specific microbes by the host plant to support plant growth and resilience under stress. This review also explores current methods for engineering and manipulating the rhizosphere microbiome, including host plant-mediated manipulation, soil-related methods, and microbe-mediated methods. Advanced techniques to harness the plant's ability to recruit useful microbes and the promising use of rhizo-microbiome transplantation are highlighted. The goal of this review is to provide valuable insights into the current knowledge, which will facilitate the development of cutting-edge strategies for manipulating the rhizosphere microbiome for enhanced plant growth and stress tolerance. The article also indicates promising avenues for future research in this field.

Food fermentation has been practised since ancient times to improve sensory properties and food preservation. This review discusses the process of fermentation, which has undergone remarkable improvement over the years, from relying on natural microbes and spontaneous fermentation to back-slopping and the use of starter cultures. Modern biotechnological approaches, including genome editing using CRISPR/Cas9, have been investigated and hold promise for improving the fermentation process. The invention of next-generation sequencing techniques and the rise of meta-omics tools have advanced our knowledge on the characterisation of microbiomes involved in food fermentation and their functional roles. The contribution and potential advantages of meta-omics technologies in understanding the process of fermentation and examples of recent studies utilising multi-omics approaches for studying food-fermentation microbiomes are reviewed. Recent technological advances in studying food fermentation have provided insights into the ancient wisdom in the practice of food fermentation, such as the choice of substrates and fermentation conditions leading to desirable properties. This review aims to stimulate research on the process of fermentation and the associated microbiomes to produce fermented food efficiently and sustainably. Prospects and the usefulness of recent advances in molecular tools and integrated multi-omics approaches are highlighted.

The members of the Burkholderia genus are characterized by high versatility and adaptability to various ecological niches. With the availability of the genome sequences of numerous species of Burkholderia, many studies have been conducted to elucidate the unique features of this exceptional group of bacteria. Genomic and metabolic plasticity are common among Burkholderia species, as evidenced by their relatively large multi-replicon genomes that are rich in insertion sequences and genomic islands and contain a high proportion of coding regions. Such unique features could explain their adaptability to various habitats and their versatile lifestyles, which are reflected in a multiplicity of species including free-living rhizospheric bacteria, plant endosymbionts, legume nodulators, and plant pathogens. The phytopathogenic Burkholderia group encompasses several pathogens representing threats to important agriculture crops such as rice. Contrarily, plant-beneficial Burkholderia have also been reported, which have symbiotic and growth-promoting roles. In this review, the taxonomy of Burkholderia is discussed emphasizing the recent updates and the contributions of genomic studies to precise taxonomic positioning. Moreover, genomic and functional studies on Burkholderia are reviewed and insights are provided into the mechanisms underlying the virulence and benevolence of phytopathogenic and plant-beneficial Burkholderia, respectively, on the basis of cutting-edge knowledge.

Fermented foods represent an intricate ecosystem that delivers live microbes and numerous metabolites, influencing gut health. In this review, we explore how complex microbial communities and metabolites generated during food fermentation modulate the gut microbiome and affect human health. We discuss fermentation-induced biochemical transformations, including enhanced fiber fermentability; nutrient availability; and the synthesis of bioactive metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids, exopolysaccharides, bacteriocins, and modified polyphenols. We describe the dynamic microbial ecology of fermented foods, influenced by ingredient variations, highlighting its effect on health-related metabolic outcomes. Fermented products when consumed transiently introduce beneficial microbes and bioactive compounds into the gut, thereby boosting microbial diversity, resilience, and barrier function. We review clinical and preclinical studies to substantiate the roles of fermented foods in immune regulation, metabolic homeostasis, cognitive function, and inflammation mitigation. Individual variability in response to fermented foods has been emphasized, underscoring the potential for personalized nutrition strategies informed by advanced omics technologies. By integrating microbial ecology, metabolomics, and clinical evidence, this review positions fermented food intake as a strategic dietary intervention for microbiome modulation and health promotion.

The aim of this study was to investigate differences between the gut microbiota composition in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and those with osteoarthritis (OA). Stool samples from nine RA patients and nine OA patients were collected, and DNA was extracted. The gut microbiome was assessed using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. The structures and differences in the gut microbiome between RA and OA were analyzed. The analysis of diversity revealed no differences in the complexity of samples. The RA group had a lower Bacteroidetes: Firmicutes ratio than did the OA group. Lactobacilli and Prevotella, particularly Prevotella copri, were more abundant in the RA than in the OA group, although these differences were not statistically significant. The relative abundance of Bacteroides and Bifidobacterium was lower in the RA group. At the species level, the abundance of certain bacterial species was significantly lower in the RA group, such as Fusicatenibacter saccharivorans, Dialister invisus, Clostridium leptum, Ruthenibacterium lactatiformans, Anaerotruncus colihominis, Bacteroides faecichinchillae, Harryflintia acetispora, Bacteroides acidifaciens, and Christensenella minuta. The microbial properties of the gut differed between RA and OA patients, and the RA dysbiosis revealed results similar to those of other autoimmune diseases, suggesting that a specific gut microbiota pattern is related to autoimmunity.

Plants are functional macrobes living in a close association with diverse communities of microbes and viruses as complex systems that continuously interact with the surrounding environment. The microbiota within the plant holobiont serves various essential and beneficial roles, such as in plant growth at different stages, starting from seed germination. Meanwhile, pathogenic microbes—differentiated from the rest of the plant microbiome based on their ability to damage the plant tissues through transient blooming under specific conditions—are also a part of the plant microbiome. Recent advances in multi-omics have furthered our understanding of the structure and functions of plant-associated microbes, and a pathobiome paradigm has emerged as a set of organisms (i.e., complex eukaryotic, microbial, and viral communities) within the plant’s biotic environment which interact with the host to deteriorate its health status. Recent studies have demonstrated that the one pathogen–one disease hypothesis is insufficient to describe the disease process in many cases, particularly when complex organismic communities are involved. The present review discusses the plant holobiont and covers the steady transition of plant pathology from the one pathogen–one disease hypothesis to the pathobiome paradigm. Moreover, previous reports on model plant diseases, in which more than one pathogen or co-operative interaction amongst pathogenic microbes is implicated, are reviewed and discussed.