Vol. 9(25), pp. 1649-1657, 24 June, 2015 DOI: 10.5897/AJMR2015.7443 Article Number: CA2EB9854065 ISSN 1996-0808 Copyright © 2015 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article http://www.academicjournals.org/AJMR African Journal of Microbiology Research Full Length Research Paper Diversity and distribution of endophytic bacterial community in the Noni ( Morinda citrifolia L.) plant Yang Liu 1# , Yinhu Li 2# , Su Yao 1 , Hui Wang 2 , Yanhua Cao 1 , Jie Li 2 , Feirong Bai 1 , Chuangzhao Qiu 2 , Xin Feng 2 , Wenkui Dai 2 and Chi Cheng 1 * 1 China National Research Institute of Food and Fermentation Industries, China Center of Industrial Culture Collection， Beijing 100015, China. 2 BGI Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Received 22 February, 2015; Accepted 15 June, 2015 Noni (Morinda citrifolia L.) is a plant used by traditional cultures and also in modern health care products. Various chemical substances are derived from the plant and include, but are not limited to anthraquinone flavonol glycosides, iridoid glycosides, lipids glycosides and triterpenoids. Also commonly found on the plant are endophytic bacteria however, there are no reports on endophytic bacterial community of Noni. We collected samples from five sites of Noni plant (roots, branches, leaves, fruits and seeds) and performed 16S rDNA analysis. Results show that these five parts harbor a highly similar bacterial composition with the top four being Sphingomonas, Pseudomonas, Halomonas and Geobacillus. Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas were found to be widely distributed in plant endophytic biotope; while there are little reports on plant-associated Halomonas and Geobacillus, indicating distribution in the plant hosts. Unknown genus also is abundant in five sites of Noni, ranging from 26.70 to 33.66%, implicating necessity to reveal them. This study provides information on endophytic bacteria in the Noni for future analysis based on a metagenome strategy. Key words: Noni, endophytic bacteria, diversity, metagenome. INTRODUCTION Plants host an abundant microbial community in rhizosphere, phyllosphere and endosphere areas as previous research has reported and the noni plant microbiome has received significant attention in recent years (Lebeis et al., 2012; Turner and James, 2013; Bulgarelli et al., 2013; Berg et al., 2014). Microbes colonizing plant surfaces and interior areas are vital for plant health and productivity (Bonfante, 2010; Berendsen et al., 2012; Ferrara et al., 2012; Monteiro et al., 2012), but some of them could lead to disease development of plants (James and Olivares, 1998; Monteiro et al., 2012; Van Overbeek et al., 2014). Prior reports indicate that *Corresponding author. E-mail: cheng100027@163.com. # These authors contributed equally to this work. Author(s) agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License