Current soil management strategies are mainly dependent on inorganic chemical-based fertilizers, which caused a serious threat to human health and environment. The exploitation of beneficial microbes as a biofertilizer has become paramount importance in agriculture sector for their potential role in food safety and sustainable crop production. The eco-friendly approaches inspire a wide range of application of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs), endo- and ectomycorrhizal fungi, cyanobacteria and many other useful microscopic organisms led to improved nutrient uptake, plant growth and plant tolerance to abiotic and biotic stress. The present review highlighted biofertilizers mediated crops functional traits such as plant growth and productivity, nutrient profile, plant defense and protection with special emphasis to its function to trigger various growth- and defense-related genes in signaling network of cellular pathways to cause cellular response and thereby crop improvement. The knowledge gained from the literature appraised herein will help us to understand the physiological bases of biofertlizers towards sustainable agriculture in reducing problems associated with the use of chemicals fertilizers.

Environmental stresses including climate change, especially global warming, are severely affecting plant growth and productivity worldwide. It has been estimated that two-thirds of the yield potent...

Mitogen-activated protein kinase cascade is evolutionarily conserved signal transduction module involved in transducing extracellular signals to the nucleus for appropriate cellular adjustment. Thi...

Fungal symbionts have been found associated with every plant studied in natural ecosystem, where they colonize and reside entirely in the internal tissues of their host plant or partially. Fungal e...

Calcium ion (Ca2+) is one of the very important ubiquitous intracellular second messenger molecules involved in many signal transduction pathways in plants. The cytosolic free Ca2+ concentration ([...