Endophytic fungi harbored in Panax notoginseng : diversity and potential as biological control agents against host plant pathogens of root-rot disease

Abstract

BackgroundEndophytic fungi play an important role in balancing the ecosystem and boosting host growth. In the present study, we investigated the endophytic fungal diversity of healthy Panax notoginseng and evaluated its potential antimicrobial activity against five major phytopathogens causing root-rot of P. notoginseng.MethodsA culture-dependent technique, combining morphological and molecular methods, was used to analyze endophytic fungal diversity. A double-layer agar technique was used to challenge the phytopathogens of P. notoginseng.ResultsA total of 89 fungi were obtained from the roots, stems, leaves, and seeds of P. notoginseng, and 41 isolates representing different morphotypes were selected for taxonomic characterization. The fungal isolates belonged to Ascomycota (96.6%) and Zygomycota (3.4%). All isolates were classified to 23 genera and an unknown taxon belonging to Sordariomycetes. The number of isolates obtained from different tissues ranged from 12 to 42 for leaves and roots, respectively. The selected endophytic fungal isolates were challenged by the root-rot pathogens Alternaria panax, Fusarium oxysporum, Fusarium solani, Phoma herbarum, and Mycocentrospora acerina. Twenty-six of the 41 isolates (63.4%) exhibited activity against at least one of the pathogens tested.ConclusionOur results suggested that P. notoginseng harbors diversified endophytic fungi that would provide a basis for the identification of new bioactive compounds, and for effective biocontrol of notoginseng root rot.

Distribution of the Endophytic Fungi in Apple Leaves

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Investigation on biosuppression of Fusarium crown and root rot of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) and growth promotion using fungi naturally associated to Solanum linnaeanum L.

“…The limited effectiveness of chemical fungicides and the lack of resistance in the most commercially grown tomato cultivars led to increased focus in the search for other effective alternatives such as biological control. This control method is now increasingly considered as a key alternative for sustainable agriculture (Berg et al, 2017;Zheng et al, 2017). Different microbial agents were found to be efficient in controlling FORL such as non pathogenic Fusarium oxysporum (Alabouvette and Olivain, 2002), Trichoderma harzianum (Ozbay et al, 2004;Hibar et al, 2005), binucleate Rhizoctonia solani (Muslim et al, 2003) and Fusarium equiseti (Horinouchi et al, 2008).…”

Molecular profiling and bioactive potential of an endophytic fungus Aspergillus sulphureus isolated from Sida acuta : a medicinal plant

“…Isolation of endophytes have carried out in a variety of plant species including those growing under extreme conditions, as the global diversity of endophytic fungi are limitless (Khan et al 2011). However, still a large number of ecosystems need to be explored for such diversified endophytes and their medicinally important bioactive metabolites (Strobel 2006;Dutta et al 2014;Zheng et al 2016).…”

“…Therefore, currently endophytic fungi are extensively explored for their ability to produce antimicrobial, anticancer, antioxidants, immunosuppressive compounds, in addition protect their host against various phytopathogens (Schulz & Boyle 2005;Saikkonen et al 2006;Khan et al 2011;Kumar et al 2013;Dutta et al 2014;Murali et al 2016;Zheng et al 2016). Endophytic fungi are also known to mimic the chemistry of their host plants and produce the same bioactive natural products, suggesting the possibility of inter-generic genetic exchange between the plant and the fungus (Kumar et al 2013;Deepika et al 2016).…”