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Diverse Mesorhizobium plurifarium populations native to Mexican soils

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Abstract

Forty-six Mesorhizobium strains associated with the leguminous plants Leucaena leucocephala and Sesbania herbacea in an uncultivated Mexican field were characterized using a polyphasic approach. The strains were identified as Mesorhizobium plurifarium based upon the close relationships with the reference strains for this species in PCR-based restriction fragment length polymorphism analyses, sequencing of 16S rRNA genes, multilocus enzyme electrophoresis, and DNA-DNA hybridization. Although the strains isolated from both plants formed the same group in multilocus enzyme electrophoresis and cross-nodulations were observed in the laboratory, different electrophoretic types were obtained from the two plants grown in natural soils, indicating the existence of a preferable association between the plants and the rhizobia. The M. plurifarium strains from Mexico and the reference strains from Africa and Brazil formed different phenotypic clusters in a numerical taxonomy. The Mexican strains did not grow at 37 °C and were sensitive to salty-alkaline conditions, while the reference strains from Africa and Brazil grew at 42 °C and were more resistant to salty-alkaline conditions. These results demonstrate that both the plants and environmental factors affected the evolution of rhizobia and that the Mexican strains had adapted to the neutral soils and the cool climate where they were isolated.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Antonio Rogel and Julio Martínez-Romero for their technical support. Partial financial support was from grant IN202097 of DGAPA, UNAM, Mexico, from grant 34123-N of CONACyT, Mexico, and from grant 2001CB108905 supported by the National Science Foundation of China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Microbiología, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas, 11340, Carpio y Plan de Ayala S/N, México D.F., México

    En Tao Wang

  2. Department of Microbiology, China Agricultural University, College of Biological Science, 100094, Beijing, P.R. China

    Feng Ling Kan & Wen Xin Chen

  3. Department of Molecular Genetics, South China Agricultural University, College of Agronomy, 510642, Guangzhou, China

    Zhi Yuan Tan

  4. Centro de Investigación sobre Fijación de Nitrógeno, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México

    En Tao Wang, Ivonne Toledo & Esperanza Martínez-Romero

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  1. En Tao Wang
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  2. Feng Ling Kan
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Correspondence to En Tao Wang.

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Wang, E.T., Kan, F.L., Tan, Z.Y. et al. Diverse Mesorhizobium plurifarium populations native to Mexican soils. Arch Microbiol 180, 444–454 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-003-0610-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-003-0610-z

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