Influence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi on morpho-biochemical characteristics, nutrient uptake, and transcriptomic profile of Solanum melongena L. plant.

Abstract

The present study was carried out to observe the interaction between Solanum melongena L. with AMF treatments at morphological, biochemical, and molecular levels. The S. melongena plant was inoculated with Funneliformis mosseae, Glomus macrocarpum, Glomus monosporum, Acaulospora koskei, Acaulospora mellea and Rhizophagus irregularis, and also two consortia of F. mosseae + G. monosporum and F. mosseae + G. macrocarpum. Morphological and biochemical parameters such as shoot height, root length, shoot fresh weight, shoot dry weight, fruit fresh weight, fruit dry weight, root fresh weigh, root dry weight, chlorophyll a and b, total soluble sugars, total soluble proteins were examined in this study. Uptake of some essential micronutrients was also analyzed in this study. In transcriptomics experiment, a total of 365 transcripts were commonly upregulated (≥ 1.5x) folds in S. melongena in response to both the AMF isolates, while 44 transcripts were upregulated only in response to G. Macrocarpum and 28 transcripts were upregulated only in response to F. mosseae. KEGG pathway analysis of S. melongena treated with G. macrocarpum revealed carbon metabolism, cofactor biosynthesis and endocytosis as the dominant metabolic pathway, while analysis of F. mosseae treatment revealed glycerophospholipid and endocytosis metabolism as dominant metabolic pathways.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-025-04247-z.