Stemphylium lycopersici and Stemphylium solani improved antioxidant system of soybean under chromate stress

Husna Husna; Anwar Hussain; Mohib Shah; Muhammad Hamayun; Amjad Iqbal; Muhammad Qadir; Syed Asim; In-Jung Lee

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.1001847

Stemphylium lycopersici and Stemphylium solani improved antioxidant system of soybean under chromate stress

Front Microbiol. 2022 Nov 3:13:1001847. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.1001847. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Husna Husna^{1

2}, Anwar Hussain¹, Mohib Shah¹, Muhammad Hamayun¹, Amjad Iqbal³, Muhammad Qadir¹, Syed Asim¹, In-Jung Lee⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Botany, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
² Microbial Safety Division, Agro-Food Safety and Crop Protection Department, National Institute of Agricultural Science, Rural Development Administration, Wanju, South Korea.
³ Department of Food Science and Technology, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan, Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
⁴ Department of Applied Biosciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea.

Abstract

Ecologists around the world are giving great attention to the metal pollution of agronomic soil. Recently, several techniques have been employed to remediate heavy metals, but the use of microorganisms is cheap, less time-consuming, and easily available. In the current study, the endophytic strains, Cp1 and Cp2 were isolated from sterilized 1-5 cm long root and leaf segments of Chlorophytum comosum using Hagem media. To get pure colonies, the strains were repeatedly cultured on potato dextrose agar (PDA) media. The strains Cp1 and CP2 were identified as Stemphylium lycopersici and Stemphylium solani based on ITS sequencing and neighbor joining (NJ) method. Both strains showed a growth-promoting potential in soybean seedlings exposed to chromate (Cr) stress. Moreover, S. lycopersici and S. solani improved the Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), flavonoids, phenolics, protein, and proline contents, whereas, lowered Salicylic acid (SA) production in the seedlings. The selected endophytic fungal strains also promoted the antioxidant system of soybean seedlings through enhanced production of ascorbic acid oxidase (AAO), catalases (CAT), peroxidase, and free radical scavenging enzymes. Both strains bio-transformed the toxic Cr-VI to less toxic Cr-III in the cultural filtrate as well as host plants. In fact, efficient uptake of Cr and its conversion by the isolated endophytic fungal strains could be used as a viable tool to remediate Cr contamination in agricultural soils.

Keywords: Stemphylium lycopersici; Stemphylium solani; antioxidant system; chromium; soybean.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by Korea Basic Science Institute (National Research Facilities and Equipment Center) grant funded by the Ministry of Education (2021R1A6C101A416).