Variation of Response Patterns Associated with an Avirulent Plant Symbiont Directed Defense Gene Expressions in Maize Exposed to Toxic Elements

Objective: Microbe-assisted plant heavy metal (HM) tolerance is gaining momentum over a conventional breeding or transgenic approach being used to generate tolerant varieties capable of completing their life cycle in the metalliferous environments. To withstand toxicity, along with the current anthropogenic pressure, applications of fungi representing the largest group of eukaryotic organisms is considerably rising. Materials and Methods: The hypothesis that a novel strain, which belongs to the Trichoderma genus (TS143), was previously identified as being multi HM-resistant, improves plant HM-tolerance by regulating hydraulic conductance and defense system was tested at a molecular level. Results: While only a marginal increase in the expression level of 70 kDa chaperon protein (HSP1) gene was obtained, peroxidase (POD1) and plasma membrane intrinsic aquaporin (PIP1-5) genes were found to be upregulated (