Bacterial endophytes modulates the withanolide biosynthetic pathway and physiological performance in Withania somnifera under biotic stress.

Despite the vast exploration of endophytic microbes for growth enhancement in various crops, knowledge about their impact on the production of therapeutically important secondary metabolites is scarce. In the current investigation, chitinolytic bacterial endophytes were isolated from selected medicinal plants and assessed for their mycolytic as well as plant growth promoting potentials. Among them the two most efficient bacterial endophytes namely Bacillus amyloliquefaciens (MPE20) and Pseudomonas fluorescens (MPE115) individually as well as in combination were able to modulate withanolide biosynthetic pathway and tolerance against Alternaria alternata in Withania somnifera. Interestingly, the expression level of withanolide biosynthetic pathway genes (3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl co-enzyme A reductase, 1-deoxy-D-xylulose-5-phosphate reductase, farnesyl di-phosphate synthase, squalene synthase, cytochrome p450, sterol desaturase, sterol Δ-7 reductase and sterol glycosyl transferases) were upregulated in plants treated with the microbial consortium under A. alternata stress. In addition, application of microbes not only augmented withaferin A, withanolide A and withanolide B content (1.52-1.96, 3.32-5.96 and 12.49-21.47 fold, respectively) during A. alternata pathogenicity but also strengthened host resistance via improvement in the photochemical efficiency, normalizing the oxidized and non-oxidized fraction, accelerating photochemical and non-photochemical quantum yield, and electron transport rate. Moreover, reduction in the passively dissipated energy of PSI and PSII in microbial combination treated plants corroborate well with the above findings. Altogether, the above finding highlights novel insights into the underlying mechanisms in application of endophytes and emphasizes their capability to accelerate biosynthesis of withanolides in W. somnifera under biotic stress caused by A. alternata.