PubMed · 2026-07-08
Researchers mapped how bacterial communities and medicinal compounds vary across different parts of Paris polyphylla, a prized herbal medicine plant, and found that soil bacteria gradually thin out as you move from roots to leaves, partly because the plant's own chemical defenses shape which microbes survive where.
Polyphyllin I and II accumulated most in aerial stem and leaf tissues, while polyphyllin VI, VII, and diosgenin concentrated predominantly in root endospheres.
Bacterial diversity declined progressively from bulk soil through rhizosphere to leaf endosphere, with ecological niche differentiation identified as the primary driver of community divergence.
The dominant genus Pseudomonas showed a significant negative correlation with polyphyllin I levels but a positive correlation with polyphyllin VII, experimentally confirmed by gradient concentration growth assays.