Trichoderma Mediated Metal Chelator and Its Role in Solanum melongena Growth Under Heavy Metals

The current research has been conceptualized to see the impact of Trichoderma harzianum synthesized siderophore in alleviation of heavy metal stress [lead (Pb), mercury (Hg) and cadmium (Cd)] first time for Solanum melongena under high concentration. Alongside, we reported impact of siderophore in form of product for S. melongena seed germination in presence of heavy metal stress under high and low concentration. Optimization of siderophore production was achieved using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) that resulted in an increment of siderophore production. Through RSM, 92.7% siderophore unit was obtained whereas without using RSM only 89.1% siderophore unit was obtained. The novelty of this work lies in the fact that T. harzianum synthesized metal chelators have not been used previously for S. melongena seed germination under different heavy metal stress (Pb, Hg and Cd). Based on obtained results, we have found that in case of siderophore treated seeds, germination percentage was increased such as in 400 mg/kg of Cd and Pb concentration (with siderophore) seeds germination % was 66.6 ± 3.4% and 62.5 ± 6.8% respectively, whereas non-siderophore treated seeds germination % was 30.5 ± 5.1% and 27.7 ± 5.1% respectively. In presence of 100 mg/kg of Hg with siderophore, seed germination % was 59.7 ± 7.8% whereas in Hg stressed seeds (non siderophore treated) germination was 19.2 ± 3.9% respectively. The cluster heat map was deployed to analyze the effect of siderophore treatment on S. melongena seedling under heavy metal stress. Obtained results suggested that we can deploy the use of RSM to enhance the siderophore production using different factors such as carbon, nitrogen, pH and FeCl 3 etc. It is worthwhile approach to use siderophore as plant growth promotor in heavy metal stress due to its metal chelating activity.