Endophyte | EPFL Graph Search

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An endophyte is an endosymbiont, often a bacterium or fungus, that lives within a plant for at least part of its life cycle without causing apparent disease. Endophytes are ubiquitous and have been found in all species of plants studied to date; however, most of the endophyte/plant relationships are not well understood. Some endophytes may enhance host growth, nutrient acquisition and improve the plant's ability to tolerate abiotic stresses, such as drought and decrease biotic stresses by enhancing plant resistance to insects, pathogens and herbivores. Although endophytic bacteria and fungi are frequently studied, endophytic archaea are increasingly being considered for their role in plant growth promotion as part of the core microbiome of a plant. Endophytes were first described by the German botanist Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link in 1809. They were thought to be plant parasitic fungi and they were later termed as "microzymas" by the French scientist Béchamp. There was a belief that plants were healthy under sterile conditions and it was not until 1887 that Victor Galippe discovered bacteria normally occurring inside plant tissues. Though, most of the endophytic studies reports the mutualistic relationship of bacteria and fungus, Das et al., (2019) reported about endophytic virome and their probable function in plant defense mechanisms. Endophytes may be transmitted either vertically (directly from parent to offspring) or horizontally (among individuals). Vertically transmitted fungal endophytes are typically considered clonal and transmit via fungal hyphae penetrating the embryo within the host's seeds, while reproduction of the fungi through asexual conidia or sexual spores leads to horizontal transmission, where endophytes may spread between plants in a population or community. Most endophyte-plant relationships are still not well understood. However, recently it was shown that endophytes are transmitted from one generation to another via seeds, in a process called vertical transmission.

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Related concepts (26)

Endophyte

Fungus

A fungus (: fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from the other eukaryotic kingdoms, which, by one traditional classification, includes Plantae, Animalia, Protozoa, and Chromista. A characteristic that places fungi in a different kingdom from plants, bacteria, and some protists is chitin in their cell walls.

Plant

Plants are eukaryotes, predominantly photosynthetic, that form the kingdom Plantae. Many are multicellular. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi. All current definitions exclude the fungi and some of the algae. By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin for "green plants") which consists of the green algae and the embryophytes or land plants. The latter include hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, conifers and other gymnosperms, and flowering plants.