Abstract
Genetic studies of legume symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacteria have traditionally focused on nodule and nitrogenfixation phenotypes when hosts are inoculated with a single rhizobial strain. These approaches overlook the potential effect of host genes on rhizobial fitness (i.e. how many rhizobia are released from host nodules) and strain-specific effects of host genes (i.e. genome × genome interactions). Using Medicago truncatula mutants in the recently described nodule-specific PLAT domain (NPD) gene family, we show how inoculating plants with a mixed inoculum of 68 rhizobial strains (Ensifer meliloti) via a selectand- resequence approach can be used to efficiently assay host mutants for strain-specific effects of late-acting host genes on interacting bacteria. The deletion of a single NPD gene (npd2) or all five members of the NPD gene family (npd1-5) differentially altered the frequency of rhizobial strains in nodules even though npd2 mutants had no visible nodule morphology or N-fixation phenotype. Also, npd1-5 nodules were less diverse and had larger populations of colony-forming rhizobia despite their smaller size. Lastly, NPD mutations disrupt a positive correlation between strain fitness and wild-type host biomass. These changes indicate that the effects of NPD proteins are strain dependent and that NPD family members are not redundant with regard to their effects on rhizobial strains. Association analyses of the rhizobial strains in the mixed inoculation indicate that rhizobial genes involved in chromosome segregation, cell division, GABA metabolism, efflux systems, and stress tolerance play an important role in the strain-specific effects of NPD genes.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 463-471 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Plant physiology |
Volume | 182 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:1This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers IOS-1724993 and IOS-1856744. 2These authors contributed equally to the article. 3Author for contact: [email protected]. 4Senior author. The author responsible for distribution of materials integral to the findings presented in this article in accordance with the policy described in the Instructions for Authors (www.plantphysiol.org) is: Liana T. Burghardt ([email protected]). L.T.B. and D.I.T. conceived of and designed the experiment; D.I.T., B.E., and L.T.B. performed the experiments and analyzed the data; B.E. performed data processing and bioinformatics analysis; N.D.Y. and P.T. contributed to experimental design and interpretation of results; all authors wrote the article; L.T.B. agrees to serve as the author responsible for contact and ensures communication. [OPEN]Articles can be viewed without a subscription. www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.19.00831
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Society of Plant Biologists.
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A select-and-resequence approach reveals strain-specific effects of Medicago nodule-specific PLAT-domain genes
Burghardt, L. T., Trujillo, D. I., Epstein, B., Tiffin, P. & Young, N. D., Dryad, 2019
DOI: 10.5061/dryad.pnvx0k6hb, http://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.pnvx0k6hb and one more link, https://zenodo.org/record/4961174 (show fewer)
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