title: Soft gel medium solidified with gellan gum for preliminary screening for root-associating, free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria inhabiting the rhizoplane of plants.
abstract: For preliminary screening for and characterization of free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria from rhizoplane microflora, we used Winogradsky's mineral mixture-based nitrogen-free medium solidified with 0.3% gellan gum. The soft gel medium enabled some reference and wild free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria to grow in characteristic colonies, including their reaction to oxygen and their motility change. Gellan gum is thus likely to be a better gel matrix than agarose for the investigation of root-associating, free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria to identify their characteristic behaviors.
authors.affiliation: Division of Applied Bioscience, Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-8589, Japan. yasu-h@abs.agr.hokudai.ac.jp
authors.forename: Yasuyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hashidoko
authors.forename: Motohiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tada
authors.forename: Mitsuru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Osaki
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tahara
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000378:metabolism; D016934:Caulobacter / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D003470:Culture Media; D005782:Gels; D007711:Klebsiella pneumoniae / Q000254:growth & development; D009586:Nitrogen Fixation / Q000502:physiology*; D018517:Plant Roots / Q000382:microbiology*; D010943:Plantago / Q000378:metabolism; D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry*; D020560:Proteobacteria / Q000378:metabolism; D012685:Sepharose; D015045:Zoogloea / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media; D005782:Gels; D011135:Polysaccharides, Bacterial; C048288:gellan gum; D012685:Sepharose