Soaking Promoted Maize Growth by Altering Rhizosphere Microbiomes and Associated Functional Genes.

is a Gram-negative bacterium, which dissolves minerals, produces growth hormones, promotes root growth, and protects plants from different soil-borne pathogens. In the present study, roots, stalks, and fresh weight of maize ( L.) were significantly increased after soaking in compared with the control. Subsequently, transcriptome sequencing results of the whole maize plant soaked in showed that multiple growth and development-related genes were up-regulated more than 100-fold compared to the control. Furthermore, the abundance of plant growth promoting bacteria, such as Subgroup_6 and KD4-96, were increased significantly. On the contrary, the abundance of multiple pathogens, such as , and were significantly decreased. Moreover, inoculation with could inhibit the infection of the pathogen in maize. These results suggest that soaking seeds in may affect the expression of maize growth and development-related genes as the bacteria changes the soil microorganism community structure. These findings may help to expand the application of in crop production and provide new opportunities for food security.