ISOLATION AND EVALUATION OF ENDOPHYTIC FUNGI FROM DROUGHT TOLERANT PLANTS AND THEIR ABILITY TO CONFER DROUGHT TOLERANCE
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Date
2016-07-25
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UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES GKVK, BENGALURU
Abstract
Endophytes (fungal or bacterial) are microorganisms that complete their life
cycle inside living plant tissue without causing any overt negative symptoms and are
believed to confer habitat-adapted fitness benefits to host species. Endophytic fungi have
gained importance in the area of agriculture because of their ability to confer resistance to
different biotic and abiotic stress.In this study, we addressed two hypotheses, namely, a)
that endophytes from arid habitat plants would possess “habitat adapted symbiotic”
tolerance to drought and b) that upon inoculation to crop plants, such endophytes would
impart tolerance to drought sensitive plants. We addressed these hypotheses by
evaluating endophytic fungi isolated from 17 plant species collected from the arid
habitats of Rao Jodha Desert Park, Rajasthan for their ability to impart drought tolerance
to a drought sensitive paddy genotype, IR-64. A total of 409 fungal isolates were
obtained from 17 plant species adapted to arid habitats. They were morphologically
classified into 52 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTU‟s). Aspergillus niger was the
predominant fungi. Of these, 6 OTU‟s were able to significantly modulate the growth of
paddy seedlings (IR-64 genotype) under PEG stress (-6 bars) compared to paddy
seedlings that were not treated with endophytes. Gene expression studies of SAP-3
endophyte treated paddy seedlings did not indicate differential expression as compared to
untreated seedling. More work needs to be done to unravel the mechanism of plantendophyte
interactions, responsible for modulation of plant growth under stress.
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