ninth edition. 940 West Valley Road, Suite 1400, Wayne, Pennsylvania 19087–1898 USA: Clinical And Laboratory Standards Institute; 2006. ISBN 1–56238–586–0 Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Authors’ contributions Experimental work and data collection were carried out by YL, JY,

DJ, GD, ZZ, LM. YL, RL and SO contributed to data analysis and interpretation. The study was conceived and designed by YL and RL. The manuscript was drafted by YL, buy YAP-TEAD Inhibitor 1 RL and SO. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background Water-deficient or drought stress conditions can drastically hinder the crop growth and yield. Exposure to extreme conditions brings changes inside plant tissues at ionic/osmotic, phytohormonal and secondary metabolites levels [1]. Continuous Idasanutlin concentration waves of drought cause an imbalance in the LY2228820 molecular weight osmotic potential of the plant tissues, thus, inducing the synthesis of reactive oxygen species (ROS) [2]. To maintain the cellular redox potential and buffer the negative effects of ROS, plant

produce antioxidants like reduced glutathione (GSH), total polyphenols, catalase (CAT), peroxidase (POD) and polyphenol oxidase (PPO) etc [3]. Plants tend to accumulate higher antioxidants to avoid cellular damage. Additionally, the plant hormonal apparatus is activated to transduce stress signals during altered osmotic potential. Endogenous salicylic acid (SA) is known to develop defence-related responses during biotic stress [4, 5] while exogenous application of SA has mostly showed abiotic stress tolerance for example, heat stress in mustard [6], chilling in maize [7], salinity in Chlormezanone wheat [8] and drought in wheat and sunflower [9, 10]. Exogenous SA increase shoots length, flowering and yield in various crop plants [4–10]. During pathogenic attack, the endogenous SA in plants is often accumulated whilst the systemic acquired resistance

(SAR) is initiated which involve synthesis of pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins [3]. Conversely, during interaction with mutualistic plant growth promoting microorganism, it doesn’t involve the synthesis of PR protein, thus establishing induced systemic resistance (ISR) [11, 12]. In spite of the key role of SA in plant’s defence, its function during endophyte-association has received little attention [13]. Endophytic fungi, residing in the root tissues can play pivotal role in host-plant growth by influencing mineral composition, plant hormonal balance, chemical composition of root exudates, soil structure and plant protection against biotic and abiotic stresses [14–16]. Previous studies have shown that endophytic fungal association can significantly increase plant biomass and growth [14–18]. Studies have also elaborated the beneficial effects of endophytic fungi on the growth responses of host-plants under various stress conditions [15–18].