Molecular Soil Biology 2025, Vol.16, No.3, 150-161 http://bioscipublisher.com/index.php/msb 150 Research Insight Open Access Role of Mycorrhizal Associations in Wheat Nutrition Dandan Huang Hainan Institute of Biotechnology, Haikou, 570206, Hainan, China Corresponding email: dandan.huang@hibio.org Molecular Soil Biology, 2025, Vol.16, No.3 doi: 10.5376/msb.2025.16.0015 Received: 08 May, 2025 Accepted: 12 Jun., 2025 Published: 27 Jun., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Huang, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Huang D.D., 2025, Role of mycorrhizal associations in wheat nutrition, Molecular Soil Biology, 16(3): 151-162 (doi: 10.5376/msb.2025.16.0015) Abstract This study mainly talks about a microorganism called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) to see if it helps wheat nutrition. Many studies have found that AMF can help wheat absorb nutrients better, such as potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen. In places with less nutrients or bad environment, such as potassium-deficient and saline-alkali land, wheat and AMF perform better together. Not only does it grow faster, but it also increases yield and has stronger ability to resist bad environment. The role of AMF is not only to help the root system absorb minerals, but also to affect the expression of some genes, making wheat's antioxidant capacity and disease resistance stronger. It can also make the nutrients in wheat grains better and the protein structure more reasonable, which is helpful for grain quality. Another benefit of AMF is that it can improve soil health, allowing farmers to grow good fields with less fertilizer, which is very meaningful for environmental protection and sustainable agriculture. Different varieties of wheat may have different effects when used with different types of AMF. Sometimes it may also make some trace elements less easily available to wheat. AMF has great potential in improving wheat nutrition, yield and adaptability to the environment, and is a good helper for achieving green agriculture. Keywords Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi; Wheat nutrition; Mineral absorption; Yield improvement; Sustainable agriculture 1 Introduction Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are soil microorganisms that live with the roots of most terrestrial plants. They establish a "mutual help" relationship with plant roots, called "mycorrhizal symbiosis". In this relationship, plants can more easily absorb nutrients from the soil, especially when nutrients are insufficient, this help is more obvious (Fiorilli et al., 2018; Ganugi et al., 2019Han et al., 2025). AMF can help plants absorb key elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. In exchange, they obtain sugars produced by photosynthesis from plants to sustain their own life activities (Ganugi et al., 2019; Thirkell et al., 2019; Han et al., 2025). Wheat (Triticum aestivumL.) is one of the most important grains in the world. Many people rely on it as a staple food, and it is crucial to ensuring the global food supply (Fiorilli et al., 2018; Akbar et al., 2023; Ganugi et al., 2019). However, people often encounter some problems in the process of growing wheat. In particular, insufficient important elements such as nitrogen and phosphorus will affect wheat yields and may also make the grains less nutritious (Thirkell et al., 2019; Tran et al., 2019; de Souza Campos et al., 2021; Han et al., 2025). Traditionally, farmers use a lot of fertilizers to make wheat grow well. However, this will make the soil worse and may pollute the environment. Therefore, people are now paying more and more attention to some more environmentally friendly practices (Ganugi et al., 2019; Akbar et al., 2023). In recent years, scientists have begun to study the effects of AMF on wheat more and more. The results of the study found that AMF can indeed allow wheat to absorb more nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other nutrients, enhance resistance, and help wheat grow faster and produce higher yields. At the same time, it will also improve the quality of minerals and proteins in the grains (Abdel-Fattah and Asrar, 2012; Fiorilli et al., 2018; Ganugi et al., 2019; de Souza Campos et al., 2021; Akbar et al., 2023; Xue et al., 2024b; Han et al., 2025). AMF can also improve soil health and help reduce dependence on chemical fertilizers, which is very meaningful for sustainable development (Ganugi et al., 2019; Akbar et al., 2023). This review is to systematically sort out the relationship between AMF and wheat roots, and how it affects wheat nutrition. The focus will be on how it helps wheat absorb nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, how to improve
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