Loss of agglutinating specificity in stock cultures of Rhizobium meliloti

Abstract

Several strains of Rhizobium meliloti which have been subcultured for 23–33 years have changed from being markedly specific in their somatic agglutination reactions to become widely cross-reactive. On the other hand a fresh collection of the same species obtained from naturally nodulated, field-grown plants revealed the high degree of agglutinating specificity which had previously characterised the old-cultures. Attempts to reselect a specific substrain from old cross-agglutinating cultures by six plant passages, or to detect change to cross reactivity by ten successive subcultures of recent isolates were unsuccessful. However, one strain, isolated in 1939, was recently found to contain both specific and cross-reactive substrains.

Practically all the cultures, both old and recent, showed considerable mutability in colony characteristics but none of these was consistently correlated with cross agglutinability. Instability in 6.4% (w/v) NaCl was characteristic of the cross-agglutinating cultures. Cross reactivity was associated with a shared lipopolysaccharide antigen (LPS) which appeared to be obscured by an outer antigen in most strains still showing specific agglutinability. In the exceptional case of strain SU27, agglutination could be attributed to its specific LPS.