Metagenomic insights into dose-dependent alterations in the tobacco rhizosphere microbiome by pyrroloquinoline quinone

Abstract

Pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) is known to promote plant growth, yet how the rhizosphere microbiome varies with PQQ concentration remains poorly understood. We applied metagenomic sequencing to characterize the taxonomic composition and functional potential of the tobacco rhizosphere microbiome across PQQ treatments at 0.5, 1 and 2 mol/L plus an untreated control. The rhizosphere microbiome was dominated by Pseudomonadota and Actinomycetota and differed among treatments in a concentration-associated, non-monotonic manner. The most pronounced differences were observed at 1 mol/L, where alpha diversity showed dimension-specific variation and beta-diversity analysis resolved the most distinct community profile. Taxonomic and functional profiles varied concurrently, with Streptomyces, Sphingomonas, Rhodanobacter and Lysobacter, together with functions related to biosynthesis, energy metabolism, colonization and environmental sensing, showing higher relative abundance at this concentration. No broad-spectrum antimicrobial effect was detected at the community level, and antibiotic resistance gene abundance showed no significant differences among treatments after correction for multiple testing. These findings provide a basis for further evaluation of PQQ in modulating the rhizosphere microbiome in continuous cropping systems.