First Steps Toward Learning the Language of Mycorrhizal Communication
It has been hypothesized that both fungi and bacteria interacting with plant roots do so using similar genetic mechanisms. It has already been shown that rhizobial bacteria – particularly the nitrogen fixing microbes associated with leguminous plants – produce lipochitooligosaccharide (LCO) signals used in the communication with host plants. The authors of this study discovered that the fungus Glomus intraradices, like the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, secretes an array of sulfated and non-sulfated simple LCOs which stimulated the formation of arbuscular mycorrhizae in disparately related plants, such as Medicago (Fabaceae), Daucus carota (Wild Carrot; Apiaceae), and Tagetes patula (French Marigold; Asteraceae). These compounds were found in Glomus intraradices both interacting with plant roots and in free-living resting spores in the soil.