Enhancing drought tolerance in Malva parviflora plants through metabolic and genetic modulation using Beauveria bassiana inoculation

Abstract

Background

Enhancing crops’ drought resilience is necessary to maintain productivity levels. Plants interact synergistically with microorganisms like Beauveria bassiana to improve drought tolerance. Therefore, the current study investigates the effects of biopriming with B. bassiana on drought tolerance in Malva parviflora plants grown under regular irrigation (90% water holding capacity (WHC)), mild (60% WHC), and severe drought stress (30% WHC).

Results

The results showed that drought stress reduced the growth and physiological attributes of M. parviflora. However, those bioprimed with B. bassiana showed higher drought tolerance and enhanced growth, physiological, and biochemical parameters: drought stress enriched malondialdehyde and H ₂O ₂ contents. Conversely, exposure to B. bassiana reduced stress markers and significantly increased proline and ascorbic acid content under severe drought stress; it enhanced gibberellic acid and reduced ethylene. Bioprimed M. parviflora, under drought conditions, improved antioxidant enzymatic activity and the plant’s nutritional status. Besides, ten Inter-Simple Sequence Repeat primers detected a 25% genetic variation between treatments. Genomic DNA template stability (GTS) decreased slightly and was more noticeable in response to drought stress; however, for drought-stressed plants, biopriming with B. bassiana retained the GTS.

Conclusion

Under drought conditions, biopriming with B. bassiana enhanced Malva’s growth and nutritional value. This could attenuate photosynthetic alterations, up-regulate secondary metabolites, activate the antioxidant system, and maintain genome integrity.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12870-024-05340-w.

Highlights

Drought exposure altered the physiological and biochemical functioning of M. parviflora plants and results in impaired growth, water status and reduced pigment fractions.

Beauveria bassiana bio-priming improves the physiological functioning of M. parviflora plants and drought stress resilience.

Drought stress augmented the oxidative stress in plants by over-increasing malondialdehyde and H ₂O ₂ contents. However, B. bassiana decreased their levels in bioprimed M. parviflora plants.

B. bassiana improved drought tolerance through upregulating the production of secondary metabolites, antioxidants, the modulation of phytohormones, maintaining genome template stability and converting unavailable nutrients into available forms and increasing their absorption by M. parviflora plants.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12870-024-05340-w.