The Azospirillum brasilense Sp7 noeJ and noeL genes are involved in extracellular polysaccharide biosynthesis

Anat Lerner, Susana Castro-Sowinski, Angel Valverde, Hadas Lerner, Rachel Dror, Yaacov Okon, Saul Burdman*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

43 Scopus citations

Abstract

Azospirillum brasilense is a plant root-colonizing bacterium that exerts beneficial effects on the growth of many agricultural crops. Extracellular polysaccharides of the bacterium play an important role in its interactions with plant roots. The pRhico plasmid of A. brasilense Sp7, also named p90, carries several genes involved in synthesis and export of cell surface polysaccharides. We generated two Sp7 mutants impaired in two pRhico-located genes, noeJ and noeL, encoding mannose-6-phosphate isomerase and GDP-mannose 4,6-dehydratase, respectively. Our results demonstrate that in A. brasilense Sp7, noeJ and noeL are involved in lipopolysaccharide and exopolysaccharide synthesis. noeJ and noeL mutant strains were significantly altered in their outer membrane and cytoplasmic/periplasmic protein profiles relative to the wild-type strain. Moreover, both noeJ and noeL mutations significantly affected the bacterial responses to several stresses and antimicrobial compounds. Disruption of noeL, but not noeJ, affected the ability of the A. brasilense Sp7 to form biofilms. The pleiotropic alterations observed in the mutants could be due, at least partially, to their altered lipopolysaccharides and exopolysaccharides relative to the wild-type.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4058-4068
Number of pages11
JournalMicrobiology
Volume155
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

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