Genome sequence of the Lotus corniculatus microsymbiont Mesorhizobium loti strain R88B

Wayne Reeve; John Sullivan; Clive Ronson; Rui Tian; Lambert Bräu; Karen Davenport; Lynne Goodwin; Patrick Chain; Tanja Woyke; Elizabeth Lobos; Marcel Huntemann; Amrita Pati; Konstantinos Mavromatis; Victor Markowitz; Natalia Ivanova; Nikos Kyrpides

doi:10.1186/1944-3277-9-3

Genome sequence of the Lotus corniculatus microsymbiont Mesorhizobium loti strain R88B

Stand Genomic Sci. 2014 Dec 8:9:3. doi: 10.1186/1944-3277-9-3. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Rhizobium Studies, Murdoch University, Western Australia, Australia.
² Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
³ School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.
⁴ Los Alamos National Laboratory, Bioscience Division, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA.
⁵ DOE Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA, USA.
⁶ Biological Data Management and Technology Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁷ DOE Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA, USA ; Department of Biological Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Mesorhizobium loti strain R88B was isolated in 1993 in the Rocklands range in Otago, New Zealand from a Lotus corniculatus root nodule. R88B is an aerobic, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming rod. This report reveals the genome of M. loti strain R88B contains a single scaffold of size 7,195,110 bp which encodes 6,950 protein-coding genes and 66 RNA-only encoding genes. This genome does not harbor any plasmids but contains the integrative and conjugative element ICEMlSym(R7A), also known as the R7A symbiosis island, acquired by horizontal gene transfer in the field environment from M. loti strain R7A. It also contains a mobilizable genetic element ICEMladh(R88B), that encodes a likely adhesin gene which has integrated downstream of ICEMlSym(R7A), and three acquired loci that together allow the utilization of the siderophore ferrichrome. This rhizobial genome is one of 100 sequenced as part of the DOE Joint Genome Institute 2010 Genomic Encyclopedia for Bacteria and Archaea-Root Nodule Bacteria (GEBA-RNB) project.

Keywords: Alphaproteobacteria; Nitrogen fixation; Root-nodule bacteria; Symbiosis.