Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) play an active role in plant nutrition, protection against plant pathogens and soil quality. They are obligate biotrophs as they depend on a host plant for their needs of carbohydrates. The obligate biotrophic nature of AMF made it difficult to culture them in synthetic media. The multiplication of AMF is possible only through the conventional pot culture technique and aeroponic culture system. Contamination is the major disadvantage of these techniques. To overcome these difficulties and to produce axenic culture of AMF, co-cultivation of AMF was done with spores of Glomus microcarpum var. microcarpum and transgenic hairy roots of Ipomoea batata, which were initiated through the mediation of Agrobacterium rhizogenes ATCC 15834. Mycorrhized I. batata hairy roots were grown in a simple bioreactor constructed for this purpose.

Hairy roots were initiated from Ipomoea batata through the mediation of agropine strain of Agrobacterium rhizogenes 15834 (Chandran and Potty, 2008) and co-cultivated Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) Glomus microcarpum var. microcarpum in them and was grown in laboratory scale in a simple bioreactor. The obligate biotrophic nature of AMF made it difficult to culture them in synthetic media. To overcome this difficulty, transgenic hairy roots were used to grow this fungus. Hairy roots have a lot of advantages over normal roots, as they can grow much faster than normal roots and are capable of unlimited propagation in culture media and show genetic and biochemical stability (Hamill et al., 1986). Hairy roots can be cultivated in a simple medium without the addition of phytohormones and can grow from low inocula to high final biomass densities, with only minimal lag phase.

Mugnier and Mosse (1987), Becard and Fortin (1988) and Declerck et al. (1996) used transformed carrot roots, in the place of whole plants, to provide a simple in vitro system, which allows reproducible observation of all stages of Vesicular-Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (VAM) development under aseptic conditions (Chabot et al., 1992). Jolicoeur et al. (1999) used two submerged culture systems, petri dish and airlift bioreactor, for the production of mycorrhizal propagules of Glomus intraradices using Daucus carota hairy roots transformed by Agrobacterium rhizogenes. Chandran and Potty (2002) observed that Hairy Root Technology (HRT) is the best alternative tool to study AMF symbiosis, and it can also be used for the production of monoxenic inoculum of AMF. The present study reports the cultivation of mycorrhized transgenic hairy roots of Ipomoea batata in a newly designed simple bioreactor. Materials and Methods.

Biotechnology Journal, Antibacterial Activities, Silver Nanoparticles, Aspergillus Fumigatus, Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi , AMF, Aeroponic Culture System, Glomus Microcarpum, Agrobacterium Rhizogenes, Glomus Microcarpum, Vesicular-Arbuscular Mycorrhizal, VAM, Vesicular Arbuscular - Mycorrhizal Infection, Rhizosphere Microorganisms.