Acid soils constitute a severe problem
for leguminous crops mainly
through a disturbance in rhizobium–legume interactions. Rhizobium favelukesiian acid-tolerant rhizobium
able to nodulate alfalfais highly competitive for nodule occupation
under acid conditions but inefficient for biologic nitrogen fixation.
In this work, we obtained a general description of the acid-stress
response of R. favelukesii LPU83 by
means of proteomics by comparing the total proteome profiles in the
presence or absence of acid stress by nanoflow ultrahigh-performance
liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry. Thus, a total
of 336 proteins were identified with a significant differential expression,
136 of which species were significantly overexpressed and 200 underexpressed
in acidity. An in silico functional characterization with those respective
proteins revealed a complex and pleiotropic response by these rhizobia
involving components of oxidative phosphorylation, glutamate metabolism,
and peptidoglycan biosynthesis, among other pathways. Furthermore,
a lower permeability was evidenced in the acid-stressed cells along
with several overexpressed proteins related to γ-aminobutyric
acid metabolism, such as the gene product of livK, which gene was mutated. This mutant exhibited an acid-sensitive
phenotype in agreement with the proteomics results. We conclude that
both the γ-aminobutyric acid metabolism and a modified cellular
envelope could be relevant to acid tolerance in R.
favelukesii.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.