An improved growth medium for enhanced inoculum production of the plant growth-promoting fungus Serendipita indica

Abstract

Background: The plant endophytic fungus Serendipita indica colonizes roots of a wide range of plant species and can enhance growth and stress resistance of these plants. Due to its ease of axenic cultivation and its broad host plant range including the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and numerous crop plants, it is widely used as a model fungus to study beneficial fungus-root interactions. In addition, it was suggested to be utilized for commercial applications, e.g. to enhance yield in barley and other species. To produce inoculum, S. indica is mostly cultivated in a complex Hill-Käfer medium (CM medium), however, growth in this medium is slow, and yield of chlamydospores, which are often used for plant root inoculation, is relatively low. Results: We tested and optimized a simple vegetable juice-based medium for an enhanced yield of fungal inoculum. The described vegetable juice (VJ) medium is based on commercially available vegetable juice and is easy to prepare. VJ medium was superior to the currently used CM medium with respect to biomass production in liquid medium and hyphal growth on agar plates. Using solid VJ medium supplemented with sucrose (VJS), a high amount of chlamydospores developed already after 8 days of cultivation, producing significantly more spores than on CM medium. Use of VJ medium is not restricted to S. indica, as it also supported growth of two pathogenic fungi often used in plant pathology experiments: the ascomycete Fusarium graminearum, the causal agent of Fusarium head blight disease on wheat and barley, and Verticillium longisporum, the causal agent of verticillium wilt. Conclusions: The described VJ medium is recommended for streamlined and efficient production of inoculum for the plant endophytic fungus Serendipita indica and might prove superior for the propagation of other fungi for research purposes.

Virulence of entomopathogenic fungi against Culex pipiens: Impact on biomolecules availability and life table parameters

“…The flasks were autoclaved at 121 °C for 15–20 min. Media were poured into Petri dishes and prepared for inoculation ( Osman et al, 2020 ).…”

“…The hyphal bodies were removed by filtering the mixture through a fine mesh sieve. The conidial concentration of the final suspension was determined by direct count using a hemocytometer ( Osman et al, 2020 , El-Saadony et al, 2021a ).…”

The major plant sphingolipid long chain base phytosphingosine inhibits growth of bacterial and fungal plant pathogens

“…For growth tests in liquid medium or on agar plates, those media optimal for the respective species were used. Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA; Carl Roth GmbH, Germany) or potato dextrose medium was used for V. longisporum and F. graminearum , and Vegetable Juice (VJ) medium 45 for S. sclerotiorum and S. indica. For plate experiments, mycelial plugs of identical size were placed in the center of the plate, except for V. longisporum, which was inoculated with 10 μL of spore solution (containing 5000 spores) pipetted in the center of the plate.…”

Untargeted Metabolomics Approach for the Discovery of Environment-Related Pyran-2-Ones Chemodiversity in a Marine-Sourced Penicillium restrictum

“…For example, the cultivation of a Penicillium hordei strain on tulip agar led to the medium-dependant production and isolation of the novel metabolites corymbiferone [ 19 ] and corymbiferan lactones A-D [ 20 ]. Host-derived media have also been successfully applied to enhance the yield of fungal inocula [ 21 , 22 ], to stimulate the production of low abundance metabolites [ 23 ], and to promote novel extracellular enzyme production and enhance protein expression [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]. In the marine field, the in vitro cultivation of fungi on mussel-derived substrates has been employed to convert agricultural and marine residues into microbial metabolites [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ], and a recent study showed that mussel-processing wastewaters were a promising nutritive medium for astaxanthin production by the basidiomycetous species Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous [ 29 ].…”