Increased Production of IAA by Rhizoctonia solani is Induced by Culture Filtrate from Rice Suspension Cultures

To investigate the role of the plant hormones produced by fungi,we tried to construct a system to examine the interaction betweenRhizoctonia solani Kühn MAFF305219 and rice cells in suspensionculture (Oc). R. solani was previously found to produce IAA,with the main biosynthetic pathway via the indole-3-pyruvatepathway. The amount of IAA in the medium produced by R. solaniwas increased by cocultivation with rice cells (Oc) and by culturefiltrate (CF) of Oc. Further analysis revealed that the factor(s)that induced the enhanced accumulation of IAA was sensitiveto heat, to freezing and thawing and lyophilization, and themolecular weight was estimated to more than 10,000. These resultssuggest that the active agent(s) in the medium was (a) proteinor a proteinous substance. Among suspension cultures of variousplants, Oc and another line of rice cells (Ok) had the abilityto induce the accumulation of IAA in the fungal medium 4 h afterinoculation but other cultures of plant cells were ineffective.The promotive effect of rice CF on the accumulation of IAA wasalso observed with some strains of R. solani that belong toa different anastmosis group from MAFF305219. Thus, the accumulationof IAA was not related to the host specificity. (Received July 28, 1997; Accepted October 27, 1997)