plant surface microbiology.pdf

15 Interaction of Piriformospora indica
with Diverse Microorganisms and Plants
Giang Huong Pham, Anjana Singh, Rajani Malla, Rina Kumari,
Ram Prasad, Minu Sachdev, Karl-Heinz Rexer, Gerhard Kost,
Patricia Luis, Michael Kaldorf, François Buscot,
Sylvie Herrmann, Tanja Peskan, Ralf Oelmüller,
Anil Kumar Saxena, Stephané Declerck, Maria Mittag,
Edith Stabentheiner, Solveig Hehl, and Ajit Varma
1 Introduction
An axenically cultivable Mycorrhiza-like-fungus has been described by
Varma and his collaborators. The fungus was named Piriformospora indica
based on its characteristic pear-shaped chlamydospores (Verma et al. 1998). P.
indica tremendously improves the growth and overall biomass production of
diverse hosts, including legumes (Varma et al. 1999, 2001; Singh et al. 2002a),
medicinal and other plants of economic importance (Rai et al. 2001; Singh et
al. 2003a, b). Interestingly, the host spectrum of P. indica is very much like
arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). In addition, a pronounced growth promotional
effect was seen with terrestrial orchids (Blechert et al. 1999; Singh
and Varma 2000; Singh et al. 2000, 2002b). The fungus also provides protection
when inoculated into the tissue culture-raised plantlets by overcoming the
‘transient transplant shock’ on transfer to the field and renders almost 100 %
survival (Sahay and Varma 1999, 2000). The fungus has great potential in
forestry, horticulture, agriculture, viticulture and especially for better establishment
of tissue culture-raised plants much needed in the plant industry
(Singh et al. 2003). This would open up numerous opportunities for the optimization
of plant productivity in both managed and natural ecosystems,
while minimizing the risk of environmental damage. The properties of the
fungus, Piriformospora indica, have been patented (Varma and Franken 1997,
European Patent Office, Muenchen, Germany. Patent No. 97121440.8–2105,
Nov. 1998). The culture has been deposited at Braunschweig, Germany (DMS
No.11827). An 18S rDNA fragment was deposited at EMBL under the accession
number AF 014929.
Plant Surface Microbiology
A.Varma, L. Abbott, D. Werner, R. Hampp (Eds.)
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004