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Plasmids of the Rhizobiaceae and Their Role in Interbacterial and Transkingdom Interactions

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Biocommunication in Soil Microorganisms

Part of the book series: Soil Biology ((SOILBIOL,volume 23))

Abstract

Bacteria belonging to the Rhizobiaceae have more than a century now attracted scientific attention due to their ability to associate with plants and drastically affect plant development or well-being. Major role in the plant – microbe exchange that acts in host benefit or disease is played by indigenous plasmids of the bacteria, usually large in size and mobile among members of the same family or even order. Plasmids as such can be seen as a horizontally shared genetic pool that adds to the core genome of bacterial recipients and leads to an exchange of traits that promotes intricacy in plant–microbe interactions. Moreover, key functions on these replicons are prone to induction by plant–host or bacterial community signals. In this chapter reviewed are the plasmids of the Rhizobiaceae that mediate in interbacterial or transkingdom communication, particularly in light of the most recent advancements in the genomics field.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely wish to thank Ernö Szegedi, Léon Otten, and João Setubal for helpful discussions and information, Michael Hynes for sharing his expertise in rhizobial plasmids and Victor González for unpublished data. This work was supported by grants 70/4/7809 from the NKUA Research Committee to KMP and IN205808 (PAPIIT-UNAM) and 46738-Q (CONACyT) to MAC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genetics & Biotechnology, University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, Ilissia, Athens, TK, 15701, Greece

    Katherine M. Pappas

  2. Programa de Genómica Evolutiva, Centro de Ciencias Genómicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Apartado Postal 565-A, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico

    Miguel A. Cevallos

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  1. Katherine M. Pappas
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  2. Miguel A. Cevallos
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Correspondence to Katherine M. Pappas .

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  1. Telos - Philosophische Praxis, Vogelsangstr. 18c18c, Bürmoos, 5111, Austria

    Günther Witzany

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Pappas, K.M., Cevallos, M.A. (2011). Plasmids of the Rhizobiaceae and Their Role in Interbacterial and Transkingdom Interactions. In: Witzany, G. (eds) Biocommunication in Soil Microorganisms. Soil Biology, vol 23. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-14512-4_12

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