Interaction of Mycobiont: Piriformospora indica with medicinal plants and plants of economic importance

Traditional medicines of plant origin are used by world’s large population. Economic development including eradication of poverty in developing countries like, India or other countries of the world required increase in agricultural productivity. Bio fertilizers plays a very important role in modern agriculture, in achieving higher productions in Agriculture at lower input costs using biotechnological innovations at large. An endophytic symbiotic fungus, Piriformospora indica isolated from desert soils of Rajasthan, India promotes growth as well as important ingredients of the medicinal as well as economically important plants by forming association with roots of various plants and it has been established as biofertilizer, bioprotector, immunoregulator and agent for biological hardening of tissue culture raised plants. P. indica tremendously improves the growth and overall biomass production of adiverse host including legumes, medicinal and economically important plants. Pronounced growth promotional effect was seen with terrestrial orchids. P. indica was able to colonize the rhizoids of liverwort and the thalli failed to grow under in situ conditions in the absence of this fungus. The fungus also provided protection when inoculated into the tissue culture raised plants by overcoming the ‘transient transplant shock’ on transfer to the field and renders almost 100% survival on transplant. P. indica cell biomass which has potential for promoting growth of many plants (above 145) has been documented so far which include plants such as Centella asiatica, Coriandrum sativum, Artimisia annua, Spilanthus calva, Arabidopsis thalina, Cajanus cajan, Arachis hypogea, Mimosa pudica, Cicer arietinum, Allium cepa, Hordeum vulgare, Zea mays, Saccharum officinarum, Withania somnifera, Solanum lysopersicum, etc. However, impact of P. indica culture filtrate on plant growth promotion has been studied only in few plants. Important medicinal plants and plants of economic importance on which effect of culture filtrate of P. indica has been studied include plants such as Z. mays, Bacopa monniera, Nicotiana tabaccum, Azadiracta indica, Aristolochia elegans, Helianthus annus and Solanum melongena. P. indica, a root colonizing fungus which is cultivable axenically, uniquely possesses multifunctional properties such as plant promoter, plant protector, resistance against heavy metals, bio herbicide, immune-modulator, resistance against temperature, salt and stress tolerance as bio fertilizer and tool for basic research. There are prospects that ingredients present in culture filtrate, that are stimulated and produced in response to ingredients of culture filtrate in plants, will be identified in future completely thereby opening more avenues of applications of P. indica. Many more properties and functions of P. indica cells and culture filtrate are expected to be known in future.Keywords: Helianthus annus, Piriformospora indica, seed oil content, culture filtrate, aristolochia, plant microbe interaction