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Appl Environ Microbiol, July 1998, p. 2652-2659, Vol. 64, No. 7
0099-2240/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Intergeneric Transfer of Conjugative and Mobilizable Plasmids Harbored by Escherichia coli in the Gut of the Soil Microarthropod Folsomia candida (Collembola)

Andrea Hoffmann,1,dagger Torsten Thimm,1 Marcus Dröge,2 Edward R. B. Moore,3 Jean Charles Munch,1,Dagger and Christoph C. Tebbe1,*

Institut für Bodenbiologie, Bundesforschungsanstalt für Landwirtschaft, 38116 Braunschweig,1 Lehrstuhl für Genetik, Universität Bielefeld, 33501 Bielefeld,2 and Bereich Mikrobiologie, Gesellschaft für Biotechnologische Forschung, 38124 Braunschweig,3 Germany

Received 2 December 1997/Accepted 2 May 1998

The gut of the soil microarthropod Folsomia candida provides a habitat for a high density of bacterial cells (T. Thimm, A. Hoffmann, H. Borkott, J. C. Munch, and C. C. Tebbe, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 64:2660-2669, 1998). We investigated whether these gut bacteria act as recipients for plasmids from Escherichia coli. Filter mating with E. coli donor cells and collected feces of F. candida revealed that the broad-host-range conjugative plasmid pRP4-luc (pRP4 with a luciferase marker gene) transferred to fecal bacteria at estimated frequencies of 5.4 × 10-1 transconjugants per donor. The mobilizable plasmid pSUP104-luc was transferred from the IncQ mobilizing strain E. coli S17-1 and less efficiently from the IncF1 mobilizing strain NM522 but not from the nonmobilizing strain HB101. When S17-1 donor strains were fed to F. candida, transconjugants of pRP4-luc and pSUP104-luc were isolated from feces. Additionally, the narrow-host-range plasmid pSUP202-luc was transferred to indigenous bacteria, which, however, could not maintain this plasmid. Inhibition experiments with nalidixic acid indicated that pRP4-luc plasmid transfer took place in the gut rather than in the feces. A remarkable diversity of transconjugants was isolated in this study: from a total of 264 transconjugants, 15 strains belonging to the alpha, beta, or gamma subclass of the class Proteobacteria were identified by DNA sequencing of the PCR-amplified 16S rRNA genes and substrate utilization assays (Biolog). Except for Alcaligenes faecalis, which was identified by the Biolog assay, none of the isolates was identical to reference strains from data banks. This study indicates the importance of the microarthropod gut for enhanced conjugative gene transfer in soil microbial communities.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institut für Bodenbiologie, FAL, Bundesallee 50, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany. Phone: 49-531-596 736. Fax: 49-531-596 375. E-mail: tebbe{at}bb.fal.de.

dagger Present address: Institut für Biologie I, Ökologie des Bodens, RWTH Aachen, 52056 Aachen, Germany.

Dagger Present address: Institut für Bodenökologie, GSF-Forschungszentrum Neuherberg, 85764 Oberschleißheim, Germany.

Appl Environ Microbiol, July 1998, p. 2652-2659, Vol. 64, No. 7
0099-2240/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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