The presence of a significant endophytic fungus in mycobiome of rice seed compartments

Seed microbial communities have been known to have a crucial role in the life cycle of a plant. In this study, we examined the distribution of the fungal communities in three compartments (husk, brown rice, and milled rice) of the fourteen rice seed samples using Illumina MiSeq sequencing. A total of 894 fungal operational taxonomic units were found at 97% sequence identity, and ten fungal genera distributed throughout the three compartments of the rice seeds were identified as the core mycobiome of the rice seed. Based on the diversity analysis, the distribution of the fungal community in milled rice was found to be more diversified, evenly distributed, and differently clustered from the other two compartments. Among core mycobiome, Moesziomyces dominated almost 80% of the fungal communities in the outer compartments of rice seeds, whereas the abundances of other endophytic pathogenic fungi declined. Our results provide that antagonistic yeast Moesziomyces may be able to control the endogenous pathogenic fungal communities in rice seeds, hence maintaining the quality of rice seeds. In addition, the distribution of fungal communities differs depending on the rice seed’s compartment, indicating that the compartment can affect the distribution of the seed microbial community.