Use of plant growth promoting endophytic bacteria to alleviate the effects of individual and combined abiotic stresses on plants as an innovative approach to discover new delivery strategies for bacterial bio-stimulants

Bacterial endophytes are the organisms that live inside the plant for a full or a part of their life cycle. Endophytic bacteria have captured the interest of agriculture industry due to their plant beneficial properties, such as synthesis of phytohormones, solubilization of soil nutrients, and alleviation of biotic and abiotic stresses. Several studies have reported that stress tolerant endophytic bacteria can work with a similar performance as non-stressed conditions when inoculated to the plants under stressed conditions. Combination of abiotic stresses such as salinity, drought and low nitrogen stress can have additive or agonistic effects on bacterial and plant growth, and their interactions. However, very few studies have reported the impact of combined stress on endophytic bacterial assisted plant growth promotion. Therefore, understanding the underlying mechanisms of endophytic bacterial assisted plant’s tolerance abiotic stresses may provide the means of better exploiting the beneficial abilities of endophytic bacteria in agricultural production. Thus, the aim of this thesis was to study the stress tolerance mechanisms, beneficial characteristics, and plant growth promotion characteristics of endophytic bacteria under individual and combined abiotic stresses. Transcriptome analysis of endophytic bacteria revealed that tolerance mechanisms to deal with one kind of stress is different than concurrent stresses. Salinity and drought stress largely modulated the genes involved in flagellar assembly and membrane transport, showing reduced motility under stress conditions to preserve the energy. Additionally, bacterial endophyte that can fix nitrogen was studied with maize plant growth promotion under drought and low nitrogen stress conditions. The results suggested that diazotrophic bacterial endophyte can promote plant growth under moderate individual and combined stress conditions. Plant growth promoting endophytic bacteria can be utilized as an efficient tool to increase crop production under individual and concurrent abiotic stresses.