Fig. 4: Bacterial sensing and communication to A. thaliana and potato.

a.A. thaliana responds to P. putida engineered to relay pC-HSL upon sensing inducers IPTG or aTc (pTT409 and pTT410, Supplementary Fig. 35) in hydroponics (Methods). The data were extracted from the images in Supplementary Fig. 28. The points were obtained for n = 3 plants (A. thaliana 315_14_5_1) on different days and the bars represent the means. Microscopy images match the blue-circled replicate. b.P. putida and K. pneumoniae were engineered to detect arsenic (pTT417, Supplementary Fig. 37) and communicate the output to the A. thaliana pC-HSL receiver in hydroponics (Methods). The data were extracted from the images in Supplementary Fig. 29. The points were obtained for n = 3 plants (A. thaliana 315_14_5_1,) on different days and the bars represent the means. Microscopy images match the red-circled replicate. c A. thaliana 315_14_5_1 was co-cultured with P. putida sTT659 (Supplementary Table 4) engineered with an OR gate (pTT434, Supplementary Fig. 38), producing pC-HSL in response to either aTc or IPTG. The data were extracted from the images in Supplementary Fig. 30. Growth conditions and replicates were the same as in part a. P values for each of the induced state compared to the uninduced state are: +IPTG/-aTc: 0.02,-IPTG/+ aTc: 0.05, + IPTG/+ aTc: 0.03. Microscopy images match the blue-circled replicate. d A. thaliana 315 co-cultured with two strains of P. putida, each producing pC-HSL in response to a different signal. Strains, growth conditions, and replicates were the same as in part a. The data were extracted from the images in Supplementary Fig. 31. P values for each of the induced state compared to the uninduced state are: +IPTG/-aTc: 0.008,-IPTG/+ aTc: 0.010, + IPTG/+ aTc: 0.0007. Microscopy images match the yellow-circled replicate. Statistical significance was determined using two-tailed Student’s t test (***P < 0.001; **P < 0.01; *P < 0.05; ns, not significant P > 0.05). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.