title: Divergent genes in potential inoculant Sinorhizobium strains are related to DNA replication, recombination, and repair.
abstract: To serve as inoculants of legumes, nitrogen-fixing rhizobium strains should be competitive and tolerant of diverse environments. We hybridized the genomes of symbiotically efficient and salt tolerant Sinorhizobium inoculant strains onto the Sinorhizobium meliloti Rm1021 microarray. The number of variable genes, that is, divergent or putatively multiplied genes, ranged from 503 to 1556 for S. meliloti AK23, S. meliloti STM 1064 and S. arboris HAMBI 1552. The numbers of divergent genes affiliated with the symbiosis plasmid pSymA and related to DNA replication, recombination and repair were significantly higher than expected. The variation was mainly in the accessory genome, implying that it was important in shaping the adaptability of the strains.
authors.affiliation: Department of Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.|Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Petri
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Penttinen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.|Unit of Systems Toxicology, Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Greco
authors.affiliation: All-Russian Research Institute for Agricultural Microbiology, Saint-Petersburg-Pushkin, Russia.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Muntyan
authors.affiliation: Department of Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.|MRC-ET Molecular Diagnostics, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
authors.forename: Zewdu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Terefework
authors.affiliation: IRD, Laboratoire des Symbioses Tropicales et Méditerranéennes, UMR LSTM, Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Lajudie
authors.affiliation: All-Russian Research Institute for Agricultural Microbiology, Saint-Petersburg-Pushkin, Russia.
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Roumiantseva
authors.affiliation: LOEWE Center for Synthetic Microbiology and Department of Biology, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Anke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Becker
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Petri
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Auvinen
authors.affiliation: Department of Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.|Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lindström
mesh_terms: D004260:DNA Repair / Q000235:genetics*; D004261:DNA Replication / Q000235:genetics*; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000235:genetics*; D016680:Genome, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D010957:Plasmids / Q000235:genetics; D011995:Recombination, Genetic / Q000235:genetics*; D016962:Sinorhizobium meliloti / Q000235:genetics*
keywords: Agricultural inoculants; Comparative genomic hybridisation; Symbiosis