Alleviating the drought stress and improving the plant resistance properties of Triticum aestivum via biopriming with aspergillus fumigatus

Background Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most widely grown and vital cereal crops, containing a high percentage of basic nutrients such as carbohydrates and proteins. Drought stress is one of the most significant limitations on wheat productivity. Due to climate change influences plant development and growth, physiological processes, grain quality, and yield. Drought stress has elicited a wide range of plant responses, namely physiological and molecular adaptations. Biopriming is one of the recent attempts to combat drought stress. Mitigating the harmful impact of abiotic stresses on crops by deploying extreme-habitat-adapted symbiotic microbes. The purpose of this study was to see how biopriming Triticum aestivum grains affected the effects of inoculating endophytic fungi Aspergillus fumigatus ON307213 isolated from stressed wheat plants in four model agricultural plants (Gemmiza-7, Sids-1, Sakha8, and Giza 168). And its viability in reducing drought stress through the use of phenotypic parameters such as root and shoot fresh and dry weight, shoot and root length, and so on. On a biochemical and physiological level, enzymatic parameters such as catalase and superoxidase dismutase are used. Total phenolics, flavonoids, and photosynthetic pigments are non-enzymatic parameters. Making use of molecular techniques such as reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results It has been found that using Aspergillus fumigatus as a biological biopriming tool can positively impact wheat plants experiencing drought stress. The total biomass of stressed wheat plants that had been bio-primed rose by more than 40% as compared to wheat plants that had not been bio-primed. A. fumigatus biopriming either increased or decreased the amount of enzymatic and non-enzymatic substances on biochemical scales, aside from the noticeable increase in photosynthetic pigment that occurs in plants that have been bio-primed and stressed. Drought-resistant genes show a biopriming influence in gene expression. Conclusions This is the first paper to describe the practicality of a. fumigatus biopriming and its effect on minimizing the degrading effects of drought through water limitation. It suggests the potential applications of arid habitat-adapted endophytes in agricultural systems. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12870-024-04840-z.

Table S1.Statistical analysis of shoot fresh weight, shoot dry weight, root fresh weight, and root dry weight for different wheat varieties in response to bio-priming with A. fumigatus.C stands for control, CF stands for control inoculated with fun-gi, 200 stands for drought stress, and 200F stands for inoculated stressed vari-eties, where n=3, data are presented mean ± SD, lowercase letters in each column indicate significant differences at a probability level of 5%.
N.B.Data are presented in mean ±SD, lowercase (a, b, c, d, …) in the same column, indicating significant difference between the effect of water treatments on wheat varieties (Sids-1, Sakha-8, Giza168, and Gemmiza-7).Uppercase letters in the same raw indicate the significant difference between wheat varieties.A P value of S, sample; T, treatments, SxT, the interaction between samples and treatments.(a, b, c, d, …) in the same column, indicating significant difference between the effect of water treatments on wheat varieties (Sids-1, Sakha-8, Giza168, and Gemmiza-7).Uppercase letters in the same raw indicate the significant difference between wheat varieties.A P value of S, sample; T, treatments, SxT, the interaction between samples and treatments.

Table S2 .
Statistical analysis of Root length, Shoot length, Fibrous root number, and Stem density for different wheat varieties in response to bio-priming with A. fumigatus.C stands for control, CF stands for control inoculated with fungi, 200 stands for drought stress, and 200F stands for inoculated stressed varieties, where n=3, data are presented mean ± SD, lowercase letters in each column indicate significant differences at a probability level of 5%.N.B.Data are presented in mean ±SD, lowercase(a, b, c, d, …)in the same column, indicating significant difference between the effect of water treatments on wheat varieties (Sids-1, Sakha-8, Giza168, and Gemmiza-7).Uppercase letters in the same raw indicate the significant difference between wheat varieties.A P value of S, sample; T, treatments, SxT, the interaction between samples and treatments.

Table S3 .
Statistical analysis of Leaf length, Leaf number, Leaf width, and Leaf area for wheat varieties in response to bio-priming with A. fumigatus.C stands for control, CF stands for control inoculated with fungi, 200 stands for drought stress, and 200F stands for inoculated stressed varieties, where n=3, data are presented mean ± SD, lowercase letters in each column indicate significant differences at a probability level of 5%.N.B.Data are presented in mean ±SD, lowercase

Table S4 .
Forward and reverse sequence of primers dhn and β-actin genes according to(Hassan et al.,   2015), and Rd29A gene according to(Li et al., 2019).

Table S5 .
2^-∆∆ Ct value Fold of change value of wheat varieties before and after inoculation by A. fumigatus illustrate the role of biopriming in the upregulation or downregulation of examined genes.