Transfer of nitrogen fixation genes from a bacterium with the characteristics of both Rhizobium and Agrobacterium.
Strain T1K, reported to be Rhizobium trifolii strain T1 carrying the drug resistance plasmid RU-1drd, was able to transfer a cluster of nif+ genes to Escherichia coli K-12. Additional genetic material, resembling the gal-chlA region of E. coli, was also transferred from strain T1K. The segregation pattern of these transferred genes suggested that they were on a plasmid. Although strain TIK was able to nodulate red and white clover, it also formed very slow-growing galls on tomato stems and shared many physiological properties with Agrobacterium tumefaciens, to which it seemed more closely related than to R. trifolii. The R. trifolii hybrid T1 (R1-19drd), constructed by conjugation, did not share any of these properties of both A. tumefaciens. Thus, strain T1K appears to be a bacterium with properties of both A. tumefaciens and R. trifolii and with the capacity to transfer nif+ genes and other functions which it may have "cloned" from another bacterium such as Klebsiella.
D002876:Chromosomes, Bacterial; D003227:Conjugation, Genetic; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics; D005796:Genes; D009586:Nitrogen Fixation; D010641:Phenotype; D010957:Plasmids; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D012231:Rhizobium / Q000235:genetics*