Skip to main content

Nitrogen Fixation in Asaia sp. (Family Acetobacteraceae)

Current Microbiology volume 63, pages 226–231 (2011)Cite this article

Abstract

The genus Asaia (family Acetobacteraceae) was first introduced with a single species—Asaia bogorensis and later six more species were described namely A. siamensis, A. krungthepensis, A. lannaensis, A. platycodi, A. prunellae, and A. astilbes. Acetobacteraceae family has been divided into ten genera but, only three of them include nitrogen fixing species: Gluconacetobacter, Acetobacter, and Swaminathania. This article originated from our study primarily aimed to isolate new endosymbiotic nitrogen fixer among Acetobacteraceae during which we have isolated, for the first time in India, four different strains of Asaia sp. from three different sources: Michalia champaca flower, Anopheles mosquito, and ant Tetraponera rufonigra. All the endosymbiotic strains isolated possess the ability to fix nitrogen. Evidence for both nitrogenase activity and the presence of nifH gene in isolated Asaia sp. is presented. Asaia bogorensis (MTCC 4041T) and A. siamensis (MTCC 4042T), two of the validated type strains available from the repository, were tested positive for the presence of functional nitrogenase. The nifH gene sequences from these type strains were also confirmed and compared with other nitrogen fixing members of the family Acetobacteraceae. Our result corroborate with the previous reports that Asaia sp. are indeed widely distributed in nature but this is the first time demonstration of their functional nitrogenase activity. This study shows Asaia sp. as fourth genera of nitrogen fixing bacteria in the family Acetobacteraceae.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

43,34 €

Price includes VAT (Finland)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

References

  1. Asai T, Iizuka H, Komagata K (1964) The flagellation and taxonomy of genera Gluconobacter and Acetobacter with reference to the existence of intermediate strains. J Gen Appl Microbiol 10:95–126

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Cavalcante V, Döbereiner J (1988) A new acid tolerant nitrogen-fixing bacterium associated with the sugarcane. Plant Soil 108:23–31

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Favia G, Ricci I, Damiani C et al (2007) Bacteria of the genus Asaia stably associate with Anopheles stephensi, an Asian mosquito vector. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104:9047–9051

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Felsenstein J (1985) Confidence limits on phylogenies: an approach using the bootstrap. Evolution 39:783–791

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Franke I, Fegan M, Hayward AC et al (1998) Nucleotide sequence of the nifH gene coding for nitrogen reductase in the acetic acid bacterium Acetobacter diazotrophicus. Lett Appl Microbiol 26:12–16

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Greenberg DE, Porcella SF, Stock F et al (2007) Granulibacter bethesdensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a distinctive pathogenic acetic acid bacterium in the family Acetobacteraceae. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 56:2609–2616

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Hall TA (1999) BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symp Ser 41:95–98

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Hardy RWF, Holsten RD, Jackson EK et al (1968) The acetylene-ethylene assay for N2 fixation: laboratory and field evaluation. Plant Physiol 43:1185–1207

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Jojima Y, Mihara Y, Suzuki S et al (2004) Saccharibacter floricola gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel osmophilic acetic acid bacterium isolated from pollen. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 54:2263–2267

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Katsura K, Kawasaki H, Potacharoen W et al (2001) Asaia siamensis sp. nov., an acetic acid bacterium in the α-Proteobacteria. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 51:559–563

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Lisdiyanti P, Kawasaki H, Widyastuti Y et al (2002) Kozakia baliensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel acetic acid bacterium in the α-proteobacteria. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 52:813–818

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Loganathan P, Nair S (2004) Swaminathania salitolerans gen. nov., sp. nov., a salt-tolerant, nitrogen-fixing and phosphate-solubilizing bacterium from wild rice (Porteresia coarctata Tateoka). Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 54:1185–1190

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Malimas T, Yukphan P, Takahashi M et al (2008) Asaia lannaensis sp. nov., a new acetic acid bacterium in the Alphaproteobacteria. Biosci Biotechnol Biochem 72:666–671

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Roy BD, Deb B, Sharma GD (2010) Role of acetic acid bacteria in biological nitrogen fixation. Biofrontiers 2:47–57

    Google Scholar 

  15. Stephen JR, McCaig A, Smith Z et al (1996) Molecular diversity of soil and marine 16S rRNA gene sequences related to b-subgroup ammonia-oxidising bacteria. Appl Environ Microbiol 62:4147–4154

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Suzuki R, Zhang Y, Lino T et al (2010) Asaia astilbes sp.nov., Asaia platycodi sp.nov., and Asaia prunellae sp.nov. novel acetic acid bacteria isolated from flowers in Japan. J Gen Appl Microbiol 56:339–346

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Syn CKC, Swarup S (2000) A scalable protocol for the isolation of large-sized genomic DNA within an hour from several bacteria. Anal Biochem 278:86–90

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Tamura K, Dudley J, Nei M et al (2007) MEGA 4: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis (MEGA) software version 4.0. Mol Biol Evol 24:1596–1599

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Thompson JD, Higgins DG, Gibson TJ (1994) CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice. Nucleic Acids Res 22:4673–4680

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Ueda T, Suga Y, Yahiro N et al (1995) Remarkable N2-fixing bacterial diversity detected in rice roots by molecular evolutionary analysis of nifH gene sequences. J Bacteriol 177:1414–1417

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Weisburg WG, Barns SM, Pelletier DA et al (1991) 16S ribosomal DNA amplification for phylogenetic study. J Bacteriol 173:697–703

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Yamada Y, Aida K, Uemura T (1969) Enzymatic studies on the oxidation of sugar and sugar alcohol. V. Ubiquinone of acetic acid bacteria and its relation to classification of Gluconobacter and Acetobacter, especially of the so-called intermediate strains. J Gen Appl Microbiol 15:186–196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Yamada Y, Hoshino K, Ishkawa T (1997) The phylogeny of acetic acid bacteria based on the partial sequences of 16S ribosomal RNA: the elevation of the subgenus Gluconacetobacter to the generic level. Biosci Biotechnol Biochem 61:1244–1251

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Yamada Y, Hosono R, Lisdyanti P et al (1999) Identification of acetic acid bacteria isolated from Indonesian sources, especially of isolates classified in the genus Gluconobacter. J Gen Appl Microbiol 45:23–28

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Yamada Y, Katsura K, Kawasaki H et al (2000) Asaia bogorensis gen. nov. sp. nov., an unusual acetic acid bacterium in the α-proteobacteria. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 50:823–829

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Yukphan P, Malimas T, Potacharoen W et al (2005) Neoasaia chiangmaiensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel osmotolerant acetic acid bacterium in the α-proteobacteria. J Gen Appl Microbiol 51:301–311

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Yukphan P, Potacharoen W, Tanasupawat S et al (2004) Asaia krungthepensis sp. nov., an acetic acid bacterium in the α-proteobacteria. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 54:313–316

    PubMed  Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

We thank CSIR (37/38/1097/04/EMR-II), DBT (BT/PR5111/BCE/08/340/2004) and DST-PURSE, Government of India, for financial support.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Science & Biotechnology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

    Neeloy Samaddar, Arundhati Paul, Somnath Chakravorty, Writachit Chakraborty, Debarati Chowdhuri & Ratan Gachhui

  2. School of Environmental Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

    Joydeep Mukherjee

Authors
  1. Neeloy Samaddar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Arundhati Paul
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Somnath Chakravorty
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Writachit Chakraborty
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Joydeep Mukherjee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Debarati Chowdhuri
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Ratan Gachhui
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ratan Gachhui.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Samaddar, N., Paul, A., Chakravorty, S. et al. Nitrogen Fixation in Asaia sp. (Family Acetobacteraceae). Curr Microbiol 63, 226–231 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-011-9968-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-011-9968-3

Keywords

  • Microbial Type Culture Collection
  • nifH Gene
  • Anopheles Mosquito
  • Acetic Acid Bacterium
  • Conserve Amino Acid Sequence