Effects of cultivating biotech maize GG2 and glyphosate treatment on the rhizospheric microbial community structure

This study is led by Professor Zhihong Lang (National Nanfan Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/Biotechnology Research Institute, CAAS, Beijing, China). In the previous study, the authors introduced two novel glyphosate-tolerance genes, gat and gr79-epsps, into maize to obtain the highly glyphosate tolerant and low residue biotech maize GG2. In this study, the authors used high-throughput sequencing to analyze the changes in the diversity and composition of the bacterial and fungal communities in the rhizosphere soil around GG2 treated with glyphosate (GG2-H), GG2 without glyphosate treatment (GG2-N), and the near-isogenic non-transgenic maize line ZD958 without glyphosate treatment (ZD-N) at seven stages of growth. The results showed that the integration of gat and gr79-epsps into GG2 had no impact on the diversity of the microbial communities; treating GG2 with glyphosate had temporary effects on bacterial and fungal diversity and richness of rhizosphere soil; the differences in the bacterial and fungal communities were associated with changes in soil indices such as pH, available phosphorus and organic matter, and seasonality. These factors, rather than maize lines, made the greatest contributions to the shifts in bacterial and fungal community structure.

In this study, the authors comprehensively evaluated the ecological risks of cultivating GG2 and applying glyphosate on microbial community composition and diversity. In addition to providing useful information about the impact of growing glyphosate-resistant maize and glyphosate treatment on the soil microbiome, these findings provide a theoretical reference for the safe promotion of new herbicide-resistant maize lines in China.

See the article:

Effects of cultivating biotech maize GG2 and glyphosate treatment on the rhizospheric microbial community structure

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42994-025-00205-8