Interaction of a medicinal plant coleus forskohlii with symbiotic fungus piriformospora indica for secondary metabolites evaluation: root endophyte mediated enhancement in secondary metabolites

Abstract

Coleus forskohlii an aromatic medicinal plant whose roots contain the economic important product forskolin an alkaloid used in the production of drug for the treatment of glaucoma and congestive cardiomyopathy Plant fungi interaction can be used as an alternative strategy to enhance accumulation of these alkaloids as most of these secondary compounds are produced due to activation of defense related biosynthetic pathways Piriformospora indica a root endosymbiotic fungus mimics Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi in many morphological functional and growth promotional aspects In contrast to arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi Piriformospora indica can be easily grown on synthetic media and hence allowing for largescale propagation and a possible use in plant production newlineThe study has been carried out to explore the comparative influence of introduced symbiotic fungus Piriformospora indica on the host Coleus forskohlii under in vitro and in vivo conditions Research has been carried to study the growth over all development and alteration in compounds of commercial interest of Coleus forskohlii In vitro coculture studies were done on various aseptic media and based on various parameters studied optimum medium for both the fungus and the in vitro plants when co cultured was found to be the combination medium of Murashige and Skoog with Hill and Kaefer medium semisolid medium The symbiotic fungus promoted the growth of host Coleus forskohlii both under in vitro and field conditions Pattern of influence of Piriformospora indica on the target plant under different growth conditions in vitro green house and field was found to be same Piriformospora indica acted as a biohardening agent and protected micropropagated young plantlets from transplantation shock Early and more vigorous flowering was observed in fungus treated plants compared to nontreated plants It was observed under field conditions that although the fungus promoted the growth and biomass of the aerial parts of the plants but in the underground parts the roots became fibrous instead of being tuberous As a result the forskolin content in the roots of the treated plants were also less than the untreated plants But in case of essential oil content in the inflorescence some composition of essential oils were enhanced due to fungus intervention as compared to untreated plants newline newline