While chemical fertilizers and pesticides indeed enhance agricultural productivity, their excessive usage has been detrimental to environmental health. In addressing this matter, the use of environmental microbiomes has been greatly favored as a ‘greener’ alternative to these inorganic chemicals’ application. Challenged by a significant proportion of unidentified microbiomes with unknown ecological functions, advanced high throughput metatranscriptomics is prudent to overcome the technological limitations in unfolding the previously undiscovered functional profiles of the beneficial microbiomes. Under this context, this review begins by summarising (1) the evolution of next-generation sequencing and metatranscriptomics in leveraging the microbiome transcriptome profiles through whole gene expression profiling. Next, the current environmental metatranscriptomics studies are reviewed, with the discussion centered on (2) the emerging application of the beneficial microbiomes in developing fertile soils and (3) the development of disease-suppressive soils as greener alternatives against biotic stress. As sustainable agriculture focuses not only on crop productivity but also on long-term environmental sustainability, the second half of the review highlights the metatranscriptomics’ contribution to (4) revolutionizing the pollution monitoring systems via specific bioindicators. Overall, growing knowledge of the complex microbiome functional profiles is imperative to unlock the unlimited potential of agricultural microbiome-based practices, which we believe hold the key to productive agriculture and a sustainable environment.
Advancement of Metatranscriptomics towards productive agriculture and sustainable environment: A review
Year: 2022
