UNLABELLED Bacteria play important roles in mineral weathering, soil formation, and element cycling. However, little is known about the interaction between silicate minerals and rhizobia. In this study, Rhizobium yantingense H66 (a novel mineral-weathering rhizobium) and Rhizobium etli CFN42 were compared with respect to potash feldspar weathering, mineral surface adsorption, and metabolic acti...

Site-specific recombination occurs at short specific sequences, mediated by the cognate recombinases. IntA is a recombinase from Rhizobium etli CFN42 and belongs to the tyrosine recombinase family. It allows cointegration of plasmid p42a and the symbiotic plasmid via site-specific recombination between attachment regions (attA and attD) located in each replicon. Cointegration is needed for conj...

The symbiotic plasmid of Rhizobium etli CE3 belongs to the RepABC family of plasmid replicons. This family is characterized by the presence of three conserved genes, repA, repB, and repC, encoded by the same DNA strand. A long intergenic sequence (igs) between repB and repC is also conserved in all members of the plasmid family. In this paper we demonstrate that (i) the repABC genes are organiz...

Strain RT1 was isolated from root nodules of Lens culinaris (a lentil) and characterized as Rhizobium etli (a Gram-negative soil-borne bacterium) by 16S rDNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. The signaling molecules produced by R. etli (RT1) were detected and identified by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. The most abundant and biologically active N-acyl...

Multidrug efflux pumps of bacteria are involved in the resistance to various antibiotics and toxic compounds. In Rhizobium etli, a mutualistic symbiont of Phaseolus vulgaris (bean), genes resembling multidrug efflux pump genes were identified and designated rmrA and rmrB. rmrA was obtained after the screening of transposon-generated fusions that are inducible by bean-root released flavonoids. T...

Rhizobium etli CFN42 is not capable of growing anaerobically with nitrate but it grows with nitrite as a terminal electron acceptor. This bacterium contains the nirK gene encoding the copper-containing Nir (nitrite reductase), which is located on the cryptic plasmid pCFN42f. Mutational analysis has demonstrated that a nirK deficient mutant was not capable of growing under nitrite-respiring cond...

Genetic and biochemical characterization of TraA, the relaxase of symbiotic plasmid pRetCFN42d from Rhizobium etli, is described. After purifying the relaxase domain (N265TraA), we demonstrated nic binding and cleavage activity in vitro and thus characterized for the first time the nick site (nic) of a plasmid in the family Rhizobiaceae. We studied the range of N265TraA relaxase specificity in ...

We previously described a Tn5 mutant of Rhizobium etli strain CE3, designated CE3003, that is decreased in nodulation competitiveness, reduced in competitive growth in the rhizosphere, and has a hydrophobic cell surface (R. S. Araujo, E. A. Robleto, and J. Handelsman, Appl. Environ. Microbiol., 60:1430-1436, 1994). To determine the molecular basis for the mutant phenotypes, we identified a 1.2-...

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) and mung bean (Vigna radiata) are important legume crops yet their rhizobia have not been well characterized. In the present study, 62 rhizobial strains isolated from the root nodules of these plants grown in the subtropical region of China were analyzed via a polyphasic approach. The results showed that 90% of the analyzed strains belonged to or were related to Brady...