Anna Maria Pirttilä, Ph. D., Docent
Academy Research Fellow
Academy of Finland
PO Box 3000
Linnanmaa A6
FIN-90014 Oulu, Finland
tel. 358-8-553 1545
e-mail initials.lastname-at-oulu.fi
Endophytes are bacteria or fungi living inside plant tissue without eliciting symptoms of disease, common to a large number of plant species. Numerous references point to ther action in plant growth and development.
Endophytes are responsible for protection of the plant host against various pathogens by eliciting resistance and by production of bioactive compounds. Endophytic fungi produce bioactive compounds more frequently than the soil fungi and harbor more frequently compounds with completely new structures than soil microbes.
Endophytes are also diverse as hundreds of species and thousands of strains can be found inside a single plant and variation in the endophyte composition can be enormous.
The projects of the plant-endophyte interactions group are:
