title: Development of a cultivation-independent approach for the study of genetic diversity of Sinorhizobium meliloti populations.
abstract: The development of a species-specific marker for the analysis of the genetic polymorphism of the nitrogen-fixing symbiotic bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti directly from environmental DNA is reported. The marker is based on terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) methodology targeting specifically the 16S-23S Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer of S. meliloti. Species-specificity and polymorphism of the marker were tested on DNA extracted from soil samples and from a collection of 130 S. meliloti bacterial isolates. These primers and the T-RFLP approach proved useful for the detection and analysis of polymorphism of S. meliloti populations.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Interactions Légumineuses-Microorganismes, Centre de Biotechnologie de Borj-Cedria, BP 901, Hammam-Lif 2050, Tunisia Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Firenze, Via Romana 17, I-50125 Firenze, Italy.
authors.forename: Darine
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Trabelsi
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pini
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bazzicalupo
authors.forename: Emanuele G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Biondi
authors.forename: Mohammed E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Aouani
authors.forename: Alessio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mengoni