Effect of endophytic fungus, Piriformospora indica, on growth parameters and activity of antioxidant enzymes of rice (Oryza sativa L.) under salinity stress

Abiotic stress including salinity is the major limiting factors of growth and crop production in arid and semiaridregions. The endophytic fungus,Piriformospora indica has a pronounced growth-promoting activity and also increasesplant resistance to environmental stresses including salinity, drought and plantpathogens. In order to study, experiment was conducted in completely randomized block design with three replicationsand with two levels of p.indica–inoculated and non-p.indica-inoculated rice(control) and four levels of NaCl (0, 100, 200 and 300 mM). This research deals with the potential of P. indica to improve growth parameters of rice (Oryza sativa L.) and increase its resistance to salt stress with base on increasing of antioxidant enzyme activities. Our study demonstrated P.indica significantly increased growth parameters for example shoot and root biomass, Relative Water Content(RWC), proline content and activities of antioxidant enzymes such as glutathione reductase (GR), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and in contrast, decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) content (produced from peroxidation of membrane lipids) in p.indica–inoculated than non-p.indica-inoculated rice under all of salt stress conditions.
So our results showed that P. indica-induced protection of O.sativa against salt stress could be mediated by antioxidant enzymes.