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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2003, p. 1067-1074, Vol. 69, No. 2
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.2.1067-1074.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Symbiotic and Genetic Diversity of Rhizobium galegae Isolates Collected from the Galega orientalis Gene Center in the Caucasus

E. E. Andronov,^1* Z. Terefework,² M. L. Roumiantseva,¹ N. I. Dzyubenko,³ O. P. Onichtchouk,¹ O. N. Kurchak,¹ A. Dresler-Nurmi,² J. P. W. Young,⁴ B. V. Simarov,¹ and K. Lindström²

Research Institute of Agricultural Microbiology, St. Petersburg, Pushkin 196608,¹ Department of Forage Sciences, N. I. Vavilov Russia Research Institute of Plant Genetic Resources, St. Petersburg 190000, Russia,³ Department of Applied Chemistry and Microbiology, Biocenter 1, Fin-0014 University of Helsinki, Finland,² Department of Biology, University of York, York YO10 5YW, United Kingdom⁴

Received 10 June 2002/ Accepted 13 November 2002

This paper explores the relationship between the genetic diversity of rhizobia and the morphological diversity of their plant hosts. Rhizobium galegae strains were isolated from nodules of wild Galega orientalis and Galega officinalis in the Caucasus, the center of origin for G. orientalis. All 101 isolates were characterized by genomic amplified fragment length polymorphism fingerprinting and by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of the rRNA intergenic spacer and of five parts of the symbiotic region adjacent to nod box sequences. By all criteria, the R. galegae bv. officinalis and R. galegae bv. orientalis strains form distinct clusters. The nod box regions are highly conserved among strains belonging to each of the two biovars but differ structurally to various degrees between the biovars. The findings suggest varying evolutionary pressures in different parts of the symbiotic genome of closely related R. galegae biovars. Sixteen R. galegae bv. orientalis strains harbored copies of the same insertion sequence element; all were isolated from a particular site and belonged to a limited range of chromosomal genotypes. In all analyses, the Caucasian R. galegae bv. orientalis strains were more diverse than R. galegae bv. officinalis strains, in accordance with the gene center theory.

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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Russia Research Institute of Agricultural Microbiology, Podbelsky, 3, St. Petersburg, Pushkin 196608, Russia. Phone: 812 4762802. Fax: 812 4704362. E-mail: eeandr{at}yandex.ru.

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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2003, p. 1067-1074, Vol. 69, No. 2
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.2.1067-1074.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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