04 lug. 2017 - Paola Bonfante

Crossing the kingdoms: Plants, Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Endobacteria

Presenta: Paola Bonfante

Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e Biologia dei Sistemi, Università di Torino

The seminar will summarize our current knowledge on the endobacteria living inside the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF, Glomeromycotina), using them as a paradigm to better understand the diversity and origin of fungal endobacteria as well as the interkingdom interaction they originate. To detect the reasons why many fungal strains have maintained their bacterial guests for hundreds of million years, we have developed a stable endosymbiont-free strain of Gigaspora margarita (B − ), which has been cured of its Candidatus Glomeribacter gigasporarum. We have applied multiple morphological and 'omics' approaches to directly compare the B − line with the wild-type strain hosting the endobacterium (B+). The coupling of transcriptomics and proteomics with physiological and cell biological approaches demonstrated that the Gigaspora endobacterium raises the bioenergetic capacity of the fungus, increasing its ATP production and respiration, and eliciting mechanisms to detoxify reactive oxygen species. We hypothesize that such changes may provide a better ecological fitness to the mycorrhizal fungus.

click to download notice of seminar