Diversity and Plant Growth-Promoting Potential of Bacterial Endophytes in Rice

Abstract

Rice seed is colonized by endophytic bacterial communities which becomes a source of endophytes and allows for a diverse bacterial community to occur inside the plant host. These endophytes can provide beneficial effects to growth and development of the host plant. Furthermore, the diversity of endophytic bacteria is dynamic within the host plant. Variations as well as density of populations of endophytic bacteria usually decline from the root to the leaf region of the plants. This review gives an overview of the plant growth-promoting mechanisms of endophytes with respect to their intensely studied plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) counterparts. The community dynamics and diversity of bacterial endophytes associated with rice and its microniches including roots, shoots, and the seeds were also discussed. This review also delves into the proposed concept of a potential core microbiota of rice, bacterial endophytes that are highly associated with rice, as well as the interesting abilities of seed endophytes to be transmitted and conserved through generations of rice hosts via the seeds.