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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, June 2001, p. 2617-2621, Vol. 67, No. 6
0099-2240/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/AEM.67.6.2617-2621.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Natural Transformation of Pseudomonas fluorescens and Agrobacterium tumefaciens in Soil

Sandrine Demanèche, Elisabeth Kay, François Gourbière, and Pascal Simonet*

Laboratoire d'Écologie Microbienne, UMR 5557, Université Lyon I, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France

Received 12 October 2000/Accepted 7 March 2001

Little information is available concerning the occurrence of natural transformation of bacteria in soil, the frequency of such events, and the actual role of this process on bacterial evolution. This is because few bacteria are known to possess the genes required to develop competence and because the tested bacteria are unable to reach this physiological state in situ. In this study we found that two soil bacteria, Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Pseudomonas fluorescens, can undergo transformation in soil microcosms without any specific physical or chemical treatment. Moreover, P. fluorescens produced transformants in both sterile and nonsterile soil microcosms but failed to do so in the various in vitro conditions we tested. A. tumefaciens could be transformed in vitro and in sterile soil samples. These results indicate that the number of transformable bacteria could be higher than previously thought and that these bacteria could find the conditions necessary for uptake of extracellular DNA in soil.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratoire d'Écologie Microbienne, UMR 5557, Université Lyon I, 43 bd du 11 Novembre 1918, 69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France. Phone: 33 4 72 44 82 89. Fax: 33 4 72 43 12 23. E-mail: simonet{at}biomserv.univ-lyon1.fr.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, June 2001, p. 2617-2621, Vol. 67, No. 6
0099-2240/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/AEM.67.6.2617-2621.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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Copyright © 2001 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.