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Bacterial Community Structure in the Rhizosphere of a Cry1Ac Bt-Brinjal Crop and Comparison to Its Non-transgenic Counterpart in the Tropical Soil

  • Plant Microbe Interactions
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Abstract

To elucidate whether the transgenic crop alters the rhizospheric bacterial community structure, a 2-year study was performed with Cry1Ac gene-inserted brinjal crop (Bt) and their near isogenic non-transformed trait (non-Bt). The event of Bt crop (VRBT-8) was screened using an insect bioassay and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Soil moisture, NH4 +-N, NO3 −-N, and PO4 −-P level had non-significant variation. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction revealed that abundance of bacterial 16S rRNA gene copies were lower in soils associated with Bt brinjal. Microbial biomass carbon (MBC) showed slight reduction in Bt brinjal soils. Higher MBC values in the non-Bt crop soil may be attributed to increased root activity and availability of readily metabolizable carbon compounds. The restriction fragment length polymorphism of PCR-amplified rRNA gene fragments detected 13 different bacterial groups with the exclusive presence of β-Proteobacteria, Chloroflexus, Planctomycetes, and Fusobacteria in non-Bt, and Cyanobacteria and Bacteroidetes in Bt soils, respectively, reflecting minor changes in the community structure. Despite the detection of Cry1Ac protein in the rhizospheric soil, the overall impact of Cry1Ac expressing Bt brinjal was less compared to that due to seasonal changes.

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Acknowledgments

This research work was supported by Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, India. One of the authors (AKS) is grateful to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, for financial assistance in the form of JRF and SRF. We are also grateful to anonymous reviewers whose constructive comments improved the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India

    Amit Kishore Singh & Suresh Kumar Dubey

  2. Indian Institute of Vegetable Research, Varanasi, 221305, India

    Govind Kumar Rai & Major Singh

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  1. Amit Kishore Singh
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  2. Govind Kumar Rai
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Correspondence to Suresh Kumar Dubey.

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Singh, A.K., Rai, G.K., Singh, M. et al. Bacterial Community Structure in the Rhizosphere of a Cry1Ac Bt-Brinjal Crop and Comparison to Its Non-transgenic Counterpart in the Tropical Soil. Microb Ecol 66, 927–939 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-013-0287-z

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