In vitro culture of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi: advances and future prospects

Abstract

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are ecologically important for most vascular plants for their growth
and survival. AM fungi are obligate symbionts. In recent years, there have been many attempts to
cultivate in vitro. Some relevant results indicate efforts are not far from successful growth of AM fungi
independent of a plant host. This paper describes the methods to cultivate root organs, and to select
and purify AM fungal inocula (intraradical and extraradical forms). Axenic and monoxenic cultures of
AM fungi are summarized and we propose a methodology to recover and achieve continuous culture of
AM fungi without lost of infectivity. The in vitro systems have proved to be a valuable tool to study
fundamental and practical aspects of AM symbiosis, complementing the in vivo experimental
approaches. Finally, we give some proposals of in vitro AM researches to exploit more the potentialities
of AM symbiosis.