Plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) represent a wide variety of soil and endophytic bacteria that have the ability to promote growth or to protect against stress of its host plant. Encapsulation of PGPB, using vegetable proteins instead of animal or petroleum-derived polymers, is a new technology to crop production and protection. Pea protein isolates (PPI) alginate capsules were synthesized and used for the protection and delivery of Bacillus subtilis B26 as plant inoculum for agricultural applications. The capsules provided a protective site to B26 strain allowing good survival, between 45 to 50%, after 112 days of incubation at different temperatures. The loaded microcapsules sustained a large population of bacteria, up to 8.3 LogCFUg -1 of soil after 3 weeks post application. The soil concentration stabilized to 7.3 Log CFUg -1 after 8 weeks post application. Capsules loaded with B26, once incorporated in the soil, successfully colonized test plants, and cell numbers inside plant tissues were sustained at 3.5 and 3.3 Log 7.3 CFUg -1 in the root and the shoot respectively. These results indicate that PPIalginate technology represents a good choice for commercial application of B. subtilis B26 in agriculture.Citation: Gagné-Bourque F, Meng Xu, Dumont MJ, Jabaji S (2015)
Materials and Methods
Maintenance and preparation of B. subtilis B26 inoculumThe B.subtilis strain B26, previously isolated from switchgrass and fully characterized [15], was maintained on Luria Broth (LB) (1.0% Tryptone, 0.5% Yeast Extract, 1.0% NaCl) with glycerol (25% final volume) and stored at-80°C. B. subtilis B26 was revived on LBA (1.5% Agar) plates. The inoculum was prepared by placing a single colony of B. subtilis B26 in 250 mL of LB and incubated for 18 h at 37°C until an OD600 of 0.7, representing colony forming units (CFU) of 3.38 × 10 8 / mL was reached on a shaker at 250 rpm to the mid-log phase, pelleted by centrifugation, washed and suspended in sterile distilled water.
Preparation of alginate capsules and microencapsulationPea protein isolates (PPI) (Propulse N™) containing 81.73% protein, <10.3% sugars, <0.7% starch, <3.4% moisture, <0.5% fat, <4.0% ash was obtained from Nutri-Pea Ltd. (Portage la Prairie, MB, Canada). Alginic acid sodium salt with low viscosity (viscosity of 1% aq. solution: <300cps) was purchased from MP biomedicals (Solon, OH, USA). Calcium chloride (CaCl 2 ) dehydrate, hydrochloric acid (HCl) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) were purchased from Fisher Scientific (Fair Lawn, NJ). Sodium hydroxide was purchased from EMD (Damstadt, Germany). Tryptone, Yeast Extract, NaCl, and Agar were purchased from Difco (Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA). Ammonium sulphate, Potassium phosphate dibasic trihydrate, monopotassium phosphate, trisodium citrate and magnesium sulfate heptahydrate were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (Co., St. Louis, MO). Glycerol was purchased from ThermoFisher Scientific (Waltham, MA). The qPCR SYBRII master mix and the ROX were purchased from Agilent Technologies (Morrisville, NC, USA) while B...