Abstract
The female spikes (fruits) of Piper longum are widely used in Ayurvedic, Siddha and Unani medicine systems to treat respiratory and digestive disorders. The spikes are rich in piperine, a pharmacologically active amide alkaloid and a potent bioavailability enhancer, which accumulates to the highest level during the dark-green stage of spike development. Plant-associated microbiota influence the plant's fitness, response, and production of economically important metabolites. Considering the economic importance of piperine and other spike-derived alkaloids, understanding microbial community dynamics during spike development would be key to bioprospecting for economically important metabolites. In the present study, the structural diversity of microbial communities associated with early (SI), mid (SII), and late (SIII) stages of spike development in P. longum has been analysed by Illumina-based amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA gene and ITS region. Results revealed that spike development significantly drives the diversity and abundance of spike-associated microbiota, especially bacterial communities. Cyanobacteria and Ascomycota constituted the most abundant bacterial and fungal phyla, respectively, across all stages of spike development. Interestingly, Halomonas, Kushneria and Haererehalobacter were found to be exclusively associated with SIII (corresponding to economically important) stage of spike development. Sphingomonas, Mortierella, Cladosporium and Vishniacozyma constituted the core microbiome of the spike. Besides, PICRUSt analysis revealed that amino acid metabolism was the most dominant metabolic function attributed to spike-associated bacterial communities. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the endomicrobiome dynamics during spike development in a medicinal plant species. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-023-01352-2.