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The high diversity of Lotus corniculatus endosymbionts in soils of northwest Spain

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 November 2015

Abstract

The diversity of rhizobia that establish symbiosis with Lotus corniculatus has scarcely been studied. Several species of Mesorhizobium are endosymbionts of this legume, including Mesorhizobium loti, the type species of this genus. We analysed the genetic diversity of strains nodulating Lotus corniculatus in Northwest Spain and ten different RAPD patterns were identified among 22 isolates. The phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene showed that the isolated strains belong to four divergent phylogenetic groups within the genus Mesorhizobium. These phylogenetic groups are widely distributed worldwide and the strains nodulate L. corniculatus in several countries of Europe, America and Asia. Three of the groups include the currently described Mesorhizobium species M. loti, M. erdmanii and M. jarvisii which are L. corniculatus endosymbionts. An analysis of the recA and atpD genes showed that our strains belong to several clusters, one of them very closely related to M. jarvisii and the remanining ones phylogenetically divergent from all currently described Mesorhizobium species. Some of these clusters include L. corniculatus nodulating strains isolated in Europe, America and Asia, although the recA and atpD genes have been sequenced in only a few L. corniculatus endosymbionts. The results of this study revealed great phylogenetic diversity of strains nodulating L. corniculatus, allowing us to predict that even more diversity will be discovered as further ecosystems are investigated.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the “Junta de Castilla y León” (Regional Government, Grant SA169U14. MM thanks for PhD fellowship from the “Miguel Casado San José” foundation (Spain) and XCG acknowledges a research grant from the “Kinesis” foundation (Puerto Rico, US).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Microbiología y Genética, Universidad de Salamanca Campus Miguel de Unamuno, Lab. 209, Edificio Departamental de Biología, 37007, Salamanca, Spain

    Marta Marcos-García, Esther Menéndez, Xavier Cruz-González, Encarna Velázquez, Pedro F. Mateos & Raúl Rivas

  2. Unidad Asociada de I+D Universidad de Salamanca (USAL)-CSIC (IRNASA), Salamanca, Spain

    Encarna Velázquez, Pedro F. Mateos & Raúl Rivas

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  1. Marta Marcos-García
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  2. Esther Menéndez
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  3. Xavier Cruz-González
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  4. Encarna Velázquez
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  5. Pedro F. Mateos
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  6. Raúl Rivas
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Correspondence to Encarna Velázquez.

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Marcos-García, M., Menéndez, E., Cruz-González, X. et al. The high diversity of Lotus corniculatus endosymbionts in soils of northwest Spain. Symbiosis 67, 11–20 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13199-015-0368-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13199-015-0368-5

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