Medicago truncatula plants overexpressing the early nodulin gene enod40 exhibit accelerated mycorrhizal colonization and enhanced formation of arbuscules

The mutualistic symbiosis between flowering plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi is extremely abundant in terrestrial ecosystems. In this symbiosis, obligately biotrophic fungi colonize the root of the host plants, which can benefit from these fungi by enhanced access to mineral nutrients in the soil, especially phosphorus. One of the main goals of research on this symbiosis is to find plant genes that control fungal development in the host plant. In this work, we show that mycorrhizal colonization is regulated by enod40, an early nodulin gene known to be involved in the nodule symbiosis of legumes with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Medicago truncatula plants overexpressing enod40 exhibited stimulated mycorrhizal colonization in comparison with control plants. Overexpression of enod40 promoted fungal growth in the root cortex and increased the frequency of arbuscule formation. Transgenic lines with suppressed levels of enod40 transcripts, likely via a cosuppression phenomenon induced by the transgene, exhibited reduced mycorrhizal colonization. Hence, enod40 might be a plant regulatory gene involved in the control of the mycorrhizal symbiosis.