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Effects of the Fungal Endophyte Epichloe festucae var. lolii on Growth and Physiological Responses of Perennial Ryegrass cv. Fairway to Combined Drought and Pathogen Stresses.

ABSTRACT: Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) is widely cultivated around the world for turf and forage. However, the plant is highly susceptible to disease and is sensitive to drought. The present study aims to determine the effect of the fungal endophyte Epichloë festucae var. lolii of perennial ryegrass on the combined stresses of drought and disease caused by Bipolaris sorokiniana in the greenhouse. In the experiment, plants infected (E+) or not infected (E-) with the fungal endophyte were inoculated with Bipolaris sorokiniana and put under different soil water regimes (30%, 50%, and 70%). The control treatment consisted of E+ and E- plants not inoculated with B. sorokiniana. Plant growth, phosphorus (P) uptake, photosynthetic parameters, and other physiological indices were evaluated two weeks after pathogen infection. The fungal endophyte in E+ plants increased P uptake, plant growth, and photosynthetic parameters but decreased the malondialdehyde concentration, proline content, and disease incidence of perennial ryegrass (p < 0.05). E+ plants had the lowest disease incidence at 70% soil water (p < 0.05). The study demonstrates that the fungal endophyte E. festucae var. lolii is beneficial for plant growth and stress tolerance in perennial ryegrass exposed to the combined stresses of drought and B. sorokiniana.

SUBMITTER: Li F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7760724 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Effects of the Fungal Endophyte Epichloë festucae var. lolii on Growth and Physiological Responses of Perennial Ryegrass cv. Fairway to Combined Drought and Pathogen Stresses.

Li Fang F Duan Tingyu T Li Yanzhong Y

Microorganisms 20201202 12

Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) is widely cultivated around the world for turf and forage. However, the plant is highly susceptible to disease and is sensitive to drought. The present study aims to determine the effect of the fungal endophyte Epichloë festucae var. lolii of perennial ryegrass on the combined stresses of drought and disease caused by Bipolaris sorokiniana in the greenhouse. In the experiment, plants infected (E+) or not infected (E-) with the funga ...[more]

PMID: 33276437

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Project description:Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) is the most cultivated cool-season grass worldwide with crucial roles in carbon fixation, turfgrass applications, and fodder for livestock. Lolium perenne forms a mutualism with the strictly vertically transmitted fungal endophyte, Epichloë festucae var lolii. The fungus produces alkaloids that protect the grass from herbivory, as well as conferring protection from drought and nutrient stress. The rising concentration of atmospheric CO2, a proximate cause of climatic change, is known to have many direct and indirect effects on plant growth. There is keen interest in how the nature of this plant-fungal interaction will change with climate change. Lolium perenne is an obligately outcrossing species, meaning that the genetic profile of the host is constantly being reshuffled. Meanwhile, the fungus is asexual implying both a relatively constant genetic profile and the potential for incompatible grass-fungus pairings. In this study, we used a single cultivar, "Alto", of L. perenne. Each plant was infected with one of four strains of the endophyte: AR1, AR37, NEA2, and Lp19 (the "common strain"). We outcrossed the Alto mothers with pollen from a number of individuals from different ryegrass cultivars to create more genetic diversity in the hosts. We collected seed such that we had replicate maternal half-sib families. Seed from each family was randomly allocated into the two levels of the CO2 treatment, 400 and 800 ppm. Elevated CO2 resulted in an c. 18% increase in plant biomass. AR37 produced higher fungal concentrations than other strains; NEA2 produced the lowest fungal concentrations. We did not find evidence of genetic incompatibility between the host plants and the fungal strains. We conducted untargeted metabolomics and quantitative proteomics to investigate the grass-fungus interactions between and within family and treatment groups. We identified a number of changes in both the proteome and metabalome. Taken together, our data set provides new understanding into the intricacy of the interaction between endophyte and host from multiple molecular levels and suggests opportunity to promote plant robustness and survivability in rising CO2 environmental conditions through application of bioprotective epichloid strains.

Project description:Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) is one of the most important species for temperate pastoral agriculture, forming associations with genetically diverse groups of mutualistic fungal endophytes. However, only two taxonomic groups (E. festucae var. lolii and LpTG-2) have so far been described. In addition to these two well-characterised taxa, a third distinct group of previously unclassified perennial ryegrass-associated endophytes was identified as belonging to a putative novel taxon (or taxa) (PNT) in a previous analysis based on simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker diversity. As well as genotypic differences, distinctive alkaloid production profiles were observed for members of the PNT group.A detailed phylogenetic analysis of perennial ryegrass-associated endophytes using components of whole genome sequence data was performed using complete sequences of 7 nuclear protein-encoding genes. Three independently selected genes (encoding a DEAD/DEAH box helicase [Sbp4], a glycosyl hydrolase [family 92 protein] and a MEAB protein), none of which have been previously used for taxonomic studies of endophytes, were selected together with the frequently used 'house-keeping' genes tefA and tubB (encoding translation elongation factor 1-? and ?-tubulin, respectively). In addition, an endophyte-specific gene (perA for peramine biosynthesis) and the fungal-specific MT genes for mating-type control were included. The results supported previous phylogenomic inferences for the known species, but revealed distinctive patterns of diversity for the previously unclassified endophyte strains, which were further proposed to belong to not one but two distinct novel taxa. Potential progenitor genomes for the asexual endophytes among contemporary teleomorphic (sexual Epichloë) species were also identified from the phylogenetic analysis.Unique taxonomic status for the PNT was confirmed through comparison of multiple nuclear gene sequences, and also supported by evidence from chemotypic diversity. Analysis of MT gene idiomorphs further supported a predicted independent origin of two distinct perennial ryegrass-associated novel taxa, designated LpTG-3 and LpTG-4, from different members of a similar founder population related to contemporary E. festucae. The analysis also provided higher resolution to the known progenitor contributions of previously characterised perennial ryegrass-associated endophyte taxa.

Dataset Information

Effects of the Fungal Endophyte Epichloe festucae var. lolii on Growth and Physiological Responses of Perennial Ryegrass cv. Fairway to Combined Drought and Pathogen Stresses.

Publications

Effects of the Fungal Endophyte <i>Epichloë festucae</i> var. <i>lolii</i> on Growth and Physiological Responses of Perennial Ryegrass cv. Fairway to Combined Drought and Pathogen Stresses.

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