Elucidating Mechanisms of Endophytes Used in Plant Protection and Other Bioactivities With Multifunctional Prospects

Abstract

Endophytes are abundant in plants and studies are continuously emanating on their ability to protect plants from pathogens that cause diseases especially in the field of agriculture. The advantage that endophytes have over other biocontrol agents is the ability to colonize plant's internal tissues. Despite this attributes, a deep understanding of the mechanism employed by endophytes in protecting the plant from diseases is still required for both effectiveness and commercialization. Also, there are increasing cases of antibiotics resistance among most causative agents of diseases in human beings, which calls for an alternative drug discovery using natural sources. Endophytes present themselves as a storehouse of many bioactive metabolites such as phenolic acids, alkaloids, quinones, steroids, saponins, tannins, and terpenoids which makes them a promising candidate for anticancer, antimalarial, antituberculosis, antiviral, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, antiarthritis, and immunosuppressive properties among many others, even though the primary function of bioactive compounds from endophytes is to make the host plants resistant to both abiotic and biotic stresses. Endophytes still present themselves as a peculiar source of possible drugs. This study elucidates the mechanisms employed by endophytes in protecting the plant from diseases and different bioactivities of importance to humans with a focus on endophytic bacteria and fungi.

Analyzing Ash Leaf-Colonizing Fungal Communities for Their Biological Control of Hymenoscyphus fraxineus

“…However, it is assumed that the resilience of the host is significantly influenced by its microbiome (Berg et al, 2017;Compant et al, 2019;Liu et al, 2020). Bacteria and fungi that colonize the surface and the endosphere of the plant can suppress invaders directly by resource competition, parasitism and antibiosis or indirectly by activating the plant's own defense system (Latz et al, 2018;Fadiji and Babalola, 2020). In addition, some endophytic microorganisms are able to promote plant growth and development, resulting in an increased resilience in response to stress and pathogens (Glick, 2012;Hossain et al, 2017).…”

Organic Farming Enhances the Diversity and Community Structure of Endophytic Archaea and Fungi in Maize Plant: a Shotgun Approach

“…However, recent studies have revealed that some pathogenic organisms inhabit the tissues of the plant (Szilagyi-Zecchin et al 2014;Sandhya et al 2017). Beneficial endophytic fungi are known to enhance plant yield and growth through various mechanisms such as phytohormone production, an increment of nutrient uptakes such as iron, phosphate, and nitrogen and activation of plant growthpromoting genes (Martínez-Medina et al 2011;Durán et al 2018;Xia et al 2019;Fadiji and Babalola 2020a). However, due to the dominance of all the fungi phyla in the FK sites, we used the endophytic fungi genus to plot our PCA graph, which revealed that each fertilizer site has different endophytic fungi and accounts for a combined 72.4% variance across the sites (Fig.…”

“…Endophytes are class of microbes (such as fungi, archaea, bacteria, and actinomycetes) which inhabit the tissues of healthy plants without causing any harm or disease (Omomowo and Babalola 2019), though a recent study showed that some could be pathogenic (Brader et al 2017). They are reservoirs of bioactive metabolites and phytochemicals which have been reported to promote the growth and yield of the plant, alongside boost the plant's fitness against biotic and abiotic stresses (Furtado et al 2019;Hardoim et al 2015;Fadiji and Babalola 2020a). Endophytic fungi can be beneficial to their host and can also be pathogenic at some specific stages of their growth when exposed to certain environmental conditions (Jia et al 2016).…”

The Nexus Between Plant and Plant Microbiome: Revelation of the Networking Strategies

“…Endophytes have been reported to confer many plant growth-promoting functions on the host plant (Arora and Ramawat, 2017;Fadiji and Babalola, 2020a). They also help in boosting plant growth, yield, and nutrient uptake (Kumar et al, 2017).…”