The endophytic fungus (strain Nitaf22) was isolated from the inner tissue of the healthy root of a three-year-old tobacco N. tabacum L. grown in the greenhouse of the campus at China Agricultural University (CAU) in July 2014. The fungus was cultured on PDA (potato dextrose agar) medium for 5 days at 25 °C, and then a slice of agar containing fungal hyphae was transferred to a 250 mL Erlenmeyer flask containing 150 mL of PDB (potato dextrose broth). The cultivation was performed in a rotatory shaker for another 7 days at 150 rpm and 25 °C to produce the seed culture, which was used to inoculate the autoclaved rice media in 1 L Erlenmeyer flasks each containing 100 g of rice and 110 mL of distilled water. The scale-up fermentation was carried out using a total of 4.5 kg of rice under static conditions at room temperature (RT) in the dark for 35 days.