Development of electroporation-mediated transformation system for axenically cultivable root endophyte fungus Piriformospora indica

The root-colonizing fungal mutualist P. indica was discovered in association with woody shrubs in the Indian Thar desert in 1997. Since then, the fungus has been shown to confer beneficial association to a broad spectrum of host plants (1,2,3). Involvement of P. indica have been reported in high salt tolerance, disease resistance, growth-promoting activities leading to enhancement of host plant yield and in improvements of the nutritional status of the host plant (1,4,5). This fungus has been termed as plant probiotic (6). Until recently, the application of this fungus in agriculture biotechnology was hampered because of the non-availability of a suitable transformation system. For the first time in the present study to explore the beneficial features of this fungus, the EMT system has been developed using RNAi as a reporter. We propose that this system will be very helpful in genetic manipulation of P. indica to complement crop-growing strategies.