Table 2.

Summary of beneficial plant–microbe interactions and near-term applications

Activity	Application	Priority
Phytohormone production	Plant growth promotion	Develop synthetic consortia for use as yield boosting agents
Biological nitrogen fixation/phosphate soulbilization	Biofertilizer	Identify novel strains and elucidate host–microbe specificity mechanisms
Plant protection	Biocontrol	Screening of endophyte collections for antimicrobial properties and plant defence induction
Abiotic stress tolerance	Boost plant biomass on marginal land	Bioprospecting for endophytes of plants growing under extreme conditions, for example drought, cold and salinity
Phytoremediation	Remediation of contaminated land	Bioprospecting for endophytes of plants growing on a range of contaminated sites
Endophytic specialization	Novel pathways and reduced genomes for synthetic applications	Genome analysis of endophytic and closely related species and development of molecular parts and devices libraries