[Genetic diversity and phylogeny of bradyrhizobia associated with Desmodium spp].
OBJECTIVE
Genetic diversity and phylogeny of bradyrhizobial strains associated with Desmodium spp. in subtropic and temperate regions of China were analyzed.


METHODS
We studied 29 desmodia isolates from different regions with BOX-PCR fingerprinting and multilocus sequence analysis (nifH, nodC and recA gene) to describe the genotypic characteristics and phylogenetic relationships.


RESULTS
We achieved 25 genotypes with BOX-PCR genomic fingerprinting analysis, indicating that the tested strains had a great diversity at genomic level. The representative bradyrhizobial strains were located in three phylogenic branches with multilocus sequence analysis (niffH, nodC and recA gene), that was closely related to Bradyrhizobium elkanii, Bradyrhizobium japonicum and Bradyrhizobium yuanmingense, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The desmodia bradyrhizobia had abundantly diversity. Diverse symbiotic genes including nifH and nodC genes were also found in these strains that indicated that the symbiotic genes were mainly maintained by vertical transfer in these bradyrhizobial populations and coevolved with housekeeping genes.
School of Life Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China. gujun@scun.edu.cn
Jun
J
Gu
Jingmiao
J
Zhang
Ruizong
R
Jia
Wenxin
W
Chen
D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D020369:Bradyrhizobium / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification* / Q000502:physiology; D002681:China; D007887:Fabaceae / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000502:physiology; D014644:Genetic Variation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D013559:Symbiosis
D001426:Bacterial Proteins