Fungal growth promotor endophytes: a pragmatic approach towards sustainable food and agriculture Mahendra Rai & Dnyaneshwar Rathod & Gauravi Agarkar & Mudasir Dar & Marian Brestic & Glaucia Maria Pastore & Mario Roberto Marostica Junior Received: 23 July 2013 /Accepted: 17 February 2014 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract Agricultural productivity suffers a heavy loss due to plant pathogens, insect pests and various abiotic stresses. Agriculture being the world’ s largest economic sector, it is the need of time to find and establish the ideal strategy for sus- tainable agriculture and improvement in crop growth. Endophytes are microorganisms that asymptomatically grow within the plant tissues without causing any disease to the host. Endophytic fungi live in symbiotic association with plants and play an important role in plant growth promotion, higher seed yield and plants resistant to various biotic, abiotic stresses and diseases. Many are able to produce antimicrobial compounds, plant growth hormones and various agrochemi- cal bioactive metabolites. These mycoendophytes hold enor- mous potential for the development of eco-friendly and eco- nomically viable agricultural products. In this review we focused on the endophytic fungi recovered from different medicinal plants, their active principles involved in plant growth enhancement and the applications of fungal endophytes in agriculture. Moreover, we also discussed about endophytic fungi and their pragmatic approach towards sus- tainable food and agriculture. Keywords Agriculture . Antimicrobial . Endophytic fungi . Medicinal plants . Plant growth 1 Introduction Endophytes are microorganisms (bacterium, fungus, actino- mycetes) that live within the host plant tissues without causing any symptoms of disease (Vanessa and Christopher 2004). There has been a growing interest in the prospecting of these microorganisms as a source of novel and bioactive natural products. Some form a mutually beneficial relationship (symbiosis) with the host plants, while others are opportunis- tic pathogens. Petrini et al. (1992) reported that there may be more than one type of fungal endophytes found within a single plant. For example, 13 taxa of fungal endophytes were isolat- ed from the leaf, stem and root tissues of Catharanthus roseus (Kharwar et al. 2008). These are relatively less studied and offer tremendous potential of novel secondary metabolites for exploitation in medicine, pharmaceutical and agriculture in- dustry. Fungal endophytes have been found in healthy tissues of all the plant taxa studied to date and it is their chemical diversity rather than biological diversity that is mainly respon- sible for the interest in these organisms. Endophytes reside in the tissues between living plant cells, forming a mutually beneficial relationship with plants from symbiotic to border- ing pathogens. This kind of relationship may refer to as mutualism or symbiosis. Karsten et al. (2007) reported herbicidal and algaecidal activity in ethyl acetate extract of an endophytic Phoma sp. isolated from Fagonia cretica. Herre et al. (2007) claimed that endophytic fungi play a potentially significant mutualistic role M. Rai (*) : D. Rathod : G. Agarkar : M. Dar Department of Biotechnology, Sant Gadge Baba Amravati University, Amravati 444 602, Maharashtra, India e-mail: mkrai123@rediffmail.com M. Rai e-mail: pmkrai@hotmail.com M. Rai Institute of Chemistry, Biological Chemistry Laboratory, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil M. Brestic Department of Plant Physiology, Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Tr. A. Hlinku 2, 949 76 Nitra, Slovakia G. M. Pastore : M. R. M. Junior DEPAN – Faculdade de Engenharia de Alimentos (FEA), UNICAMP, Monteiro Lobato st., 80, Campinas, SP 13083-862, Brazil Symbiosis DOI 10.1007/s13199-014-0273-3