Current understanding of plant-microbe interaction through the lenses of multi-omics approaches and their benefits in sustainable agriculture

The success of sustainable agricultural practices has now become heavily dependent on the interactions between crop plants and their associated microbiome. Continuous advancement in high throughput sequencing platforms, omics-based approaches, and gene editing technologies has remarkably accelerated this area of research. It has enabled us to characterize the interactions of plants with associated microbial communities more comprehensively and accurately. Furthermore, the genomic and post-genomic era has significantly refined our perspective toward the complex mechanisms involved in those interactions, opening new avenues for efficiently deploying the knowledge in developing sustainable agricultural practices. This review focuses on our fundamental understanding of plant-microbe interactions and the contribution of existing multi-omics approaches, including those under active development and their tremendous success in unraveling different aspects of the complex network between plant hosts and microbes. In addition, we have also discussed the importance of sustainable and eco-friendly agriculture and the associated outstanding challenges ahead.