of plant roots has been hampered by technical constraints in metatranscriptomics. These
include lack of reference genomes, high representation of host or microbial rRNA
sequences in datasets, or difficulty to experimentally validate gene functions. Here, we
recolonized germ-free Arabidopsis thaliana with a synthetic, yet representative root
microbiota comprising 106 genome-sequenced bacterial and fungal isolates. We used multi …