In rhizobiaceae five different species are produced by rearrangements of one genome, induced by DNA-damaging agents

Summary

All bacterial strains classified into the family Rhizobiaceae can be induced to undergo a fundamental genome rearrangement. The special structure of their genome allows the formation of five distinctive phenotypes, each one adapted to a different habitat (Fig. 1).

This genome rearrangement can be induced by DNA-damaging agents, UV irridiation or chemical mutagenesis. For expression, cells have to be protected against photorepair and their replication has to be reduced by stress treatment. The rearrangement process is, with special exceptions, reversible. Classes I and II comprise Agrobacteria and Rhizobia, class III nitrogen-fixing strains and classes IV and V two different carotenoid-pigmented types. One of the class V strains has been shown to be an effective legume-symbiont. DNA characteristics and inter-class hybridization results show not only that the genomes are completely reconstructed during each step of rearrangement, but also that the bacteria of all five classes are genetically correlated. In many cases the genetic label has been maintained during rearrangement into the different classes. The identity of each class is protected by a class-specific restriction and modification system, which was analyzed by phage typing experiments and by functional analysis of class-specific restriction endonucleases. We propose to designate the classes as different species of Rhizobiaceae. The unidirectional rearrangement between nodulating Rhizobia and tumorgenic Agrobacteria has been interpreted as a sequence of decreasing complexity of genomic regions coding for the plant interactions of these bacteria.