PubMed · 2026-04-22
Researchers developed LEAP-CS, a new high-throughput lab system that cultures soil microbes in the presence of real, living plant root secretions — allowing scientists to study which microbes plants actually attract and communicate with under realistic conditions.
The system captures diffusible metabolites from living plant roots in real time, enabling microbe culturing under plant-relevant chemical conditions rather than synthetic media alone.
LEAP-CS is designed as a high-throughput platform, meaning many microbe-plant combinations can be tested simultaneously — dramatically scaling discovery capacity compared to traditional one-at-a-time culturing.
The approach bridges culturomics (growing and cataloging microbes in bulk) with phytobiome research, potentially uncovering previously unculturable microbes that only grow in response to specific plant signals.