Strigolactones Stimulate Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi by Activating Mitochondria

By Arnaud Besserer, Virginie Puech-Pagès, P. Kiefer, Victoria Gómez-Roldán, A. Jauneau, Sébastien Roy, J. Portais, C. Roux, G. Bécard, N. Séjalon‐Delmas. PLoS Biology, 2006

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The association of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi with plant roots is the oldest and ecologically most important symbiotic relationship between higher plants and microorganisms, yet the mechanism by which these fungi detect the presence of a plant host is poorly understood. Previous studies have shown that roots secrete a branching factor (BF) that strongly stimulates branching of hyphae during germination of the spores of AM fungi. In the BF of Lotus, a strigolactone was found to be the active molecule. Strigolactones are known as germination stimulants of the parasitic plants Striga and Orobanche. In this paper, we show that the BF of a monocotyledonous plant, Sorghum, also contains a strigolactone. Strigolactones strongly and rapidly stimulated cell proliferation of the AM fungus Gigaspora rosea at concentrations as low as 10 −13 M. This effect was not found with other sesquiterperne lactones known as germination stimulants of parasitic weeds. Within 1 h of treatment, the density of mitochondria in the fungal cells increased, and their shape and movement changed dramatically. Strigolactones stimulated spore germination of two other phylogenetically distant AM fungi, Glomus intraradices and Gl. claroideum. This was also associated with a rapid increase of mitochondrial density and respiration as shown with Gl. intraradices. We conclude that strigolactones are important rhizospheric plant signals involved in stimulating both the pre-symbiotic growth of AM fungi and the germination of parasitic plants.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a9d2e3a0f2545792db81dc93d8fe6a6c7f28c6ad

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Citations in the corpus

Trade-Offs in Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis: Disease Resistance, Growth Responses and Perspectives for Crop Breeding (2017, positive): “To establish AM colonization, plant roots exude strigolactone hormones which stimulate AMF spore germination, metabolism and hyphal branching [20,21], and the release of lipochitooligosaccharide signalling molecules [22], known as mycorrhizal (Myc) factors, which are recognised by host plant recepto”
Root-Secreted Malic Acid Recruits Beneficial Soil Bacteria1[C][W][OA] (2008, background): “For example, it has been widely documented in the case of root-rhizobial and rootmycorrhizal interactions that roots secrete secondary metabolites that act as messengers to attract Rhizobium and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Kent Peters and Long, 1988; Besserer et al., 2006).”
Arbuscular mycorrhiza: the mother of plant root endosymbioses (2008, background): “and alterations in fungal physiology and mitochondrial activit”
Nitrogen‐induced acidification, not N‐nutrient, dominates suppressive N effects on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (2020, background): “Rather, N inputs increase relative N availability over P and leads to P deficiency, stimulating the production of strigolactones and excretion that trigger AMF spore germination and hyphal branching (Akiyama, Matsuzaki, & Hayashi, 2005; Besserer et al., 2006; Breuillin et al., 2010).”
Regulation and function of root exudates. (2008, background): “Numerous previously unrelated facts from past research about this complex interaction can now be integrated into a schematic way: (1) low phosphate in soil is conducive to AMF symbiosis (Smith & Read 1997); (2) phosphate starvation induces secretion of strigolactone from plant roots (Yoneyama et al.”
Plants, mycorrhizal fungi, and bacteria: a network of interactions. (2009, background): “Strigolactones, which are bioactive plant molecules that stimulate AM hyphal growth (11), caused a significant transcript increase in germinated spores, even in the absence of the plant.”
The strigolactone story. (2010, background): “detected sorgolactone in the active BF fraction from a monocot plant, sorghum (15).”
Mechanisms underlying beneficial plant-fungus interactions in mycorrhizal symbiosis. (2010, background): “The responsible compounds that are released by the root and diffuse a short distance, before being washed away or degraded, have been identified as strigolactone”