ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Crop and Product Physiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1653445
This article is part of the Research TopicElucidating the Molecular, Physiological, and Biochemical Mechanisms Underlying Stress Responses in Crop PlantsView all 21 articles
Leucocalocybe mongolica Fungus Associates with Enhanced Boosts Rice Growth and Modulatedvia Flavonoid Metabolism via Reprogramming and MYB/bHLH/WRKY Transcriptional NetworksRegulation Under Stress
Provisionally accepted
Mingzheng Duan1*
Mei Wang1Fuhan Wei1Sirui Han1Zhifang He1Dong Hu1Qiuyue Ran1
XianDe Duan1Shunqiang Yang1
Muhammad Junaid Rao2*- 1Zhaotong University College of Agronomy and Life Sciences, Zhaotong, China
- 2School of Forestry and Biotechnology, Zhejiang Agriculture & Forestry University, Hangzhou, China
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The relationship between plants and beneficial fungi offers a sustainable approach to enhance crop produc-tivity and stress resilience. This study investigated the effects of Leucocalocybe mongolica strain LY9 on rice (Oryza sativa L.) growth, flavonoid metabolism, and transcriptional regulation. Rice plants treated with var-ying concentrations of LY9-transformed soil (10%, 30%, and 50%) exhibited significant improvements in phenotypic traits, including increased tiller numbers, shoot length (989 mm), and root length (518 mm), alongside elevated chlorophyll content, indicating enhanced photosynthetic efficiency. However, total fla-vonoid content decreased at the highest LY9 concentration, suggesting a metabolic trade-off between growth promotion and secondary metabolite production. Transcriptomic analysis revealed dose-dependent modula-tion of MYB, bHLH, and WRKY transcription factor genes such as Os04g0605100-WRKY68 and Os05g0553400-R2R3MYB84, while metabolomic profiling identified selec-tive upregulation of stress-responsive flavonoids, such as chalcones (e.g., 2',4'-dihydroxy-2,3',6'-trimethoxychalcone and naringenin chalcone) and isoflavones (e.g., prunetin), while flavones were predominantly suppressed. Pearson correlation analyses underscored negative associations between flavonoid levels and growth traits, highlighting LY9's role in reallocating resources from defense to growth. These findings demonstrate that LY9 enhances rice productivity by modulating flavonoid metabolism and transcriptional networks, offering insights into sustainable agricultural practices for stress resilience. Additionally, the study underscores the potential of LY9 as a biofertilizer to optimize rice growth while maintaining stress resilience through targeted metabolic adjustments.
Keywords: Leucocalocybe mongolica, Flavonoid metabolism, Plant-microbe interaction, MYB/bHLH/WRKY transcription factors, stress resilience, biofertilizer, Rice growth, sustainable agriculture
Received: 25 Jun 2025; Accepted: 11 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Duan, Wang, Wei, Han, He, Hu, Ran, Duan, Yang and Rao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Mingzheng Duan, Zhaotong University College of Agronomy and Life Sciences, Zhaotong, China
Muhammad Junaid Rao, School of Forestry and Biotechnology, Zhejiang Agriculture & Forestry University, Hangzhou, China
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