COMPREHENSIVE, EXPERIMENTALLY INFORMED METABOLIC PATHWAY MODELING OF MAIZE RHIZOSPHERE

The principal goal of this project is to elucidate microbial interactions and metabolite exchanges that drive plant health and maintain robustness in the face of environmental stress in maize. This goal will be approached by integrating theoretical modeling with experimental data to build a comprehensive metabolic model of a maize root bacterial community. The following three specific objectives were designed to achieve this goal:Reconstruct individual metabolic networks for members of a simplified, representative maize root microbiome and integrate into a community metabolic model.Analyze metatranscriptomic, metaproteomic, and metabolomic profiles of synthetic bacterial communities grown on maize roots under both nutrient replete and limiting conditions (nitrogen, phosphorus).Utilize metabolic pathway analysis techniques to predict metabolite flow among plant-microbial species, identify key interspecies interactions, and infer patterns among different levels of cellular expression.