SUNANDA DUTTA, AVISHEK SARKAR AND SIKHA DUTTA*
Molecular Plant Pathology and Fungal Biotechnology Laboratory, Department of Botany (UGC-CAS), The University of Burdwan, Purba-Barddhanam-713 104 (West Bengal), India
*(e-mail : sikha.bu.academia@gmail.com; Mobile : 6294146346)
(Received : January 10, 2020; Accepted : March 12, 2020)
ABSTRACT
Production of siderophores by microorganisms is one of the important traits of plant growth promotion and disease suppression. Microorganisms compete for iron by releasing siderophores. In the present study, a Dark-Septate-Endophytic (DSE) fungus was isolated from the medicinal herb Celosia cristata L. and used to evaluate its potency intended for siderophore production. The fungal strain responded positively during qualitative assay and it was then subjected to review its efficiency of siderophore production on different media like minimal-media-9 (MM9), potato-dextrose-agar (PDA) and nutrient-agar (NA). PDA medium confirmed the upper limit of growth of the fungus with subsequent production of maximum amount of siderophores. Trials were given for optimum production of siderophores by the isolated. Furthermore, the fungal isolate was identified following molecular phylogenetic approaches, the phylogenetictree was constructed and bioinformatics study was pursued. Reports on siderophore production by darkseptate-endophytic fungus are scarce, so this work might be a new finding. Also in modern biotechnology, production of pure siderophore in commercial way is very necessary as application of siderophore is in increasing trends in agriculture, medical science, etc. and not much work has been done regarding this using fungal endophytes. Therefore, this work might be supportive for mass production of siderophores for medicinal plants using dark-septate-endophytic-fungus.
Key words : Crop protection, dark septate endophytic fungus, disease suppression, siderophore, Penicillium roqueforti, plant growth promotion