In vitro symplasmata formation in the rice diazotrophic endophyte Pantoea agglomerans YS19

Pantoea (formerly Enterobacter) agglomerans YS19 is an endophytic diazotrophic bacterium isolated from rice (Oryza sativa cv. Yuefu) grown in temperate climatic regions in west Beijing (China). The bacterium forms aggregate structures called `symplasmata'. A symplasmatum is a multicellular aggregate structure in which several (at least two) to hundreds of individual cells tightly bind together. The studies on the symplasmata formation of YS19 showed that there were two growth stages for YS19, including the single cell stage existing before exponential growth phase and the symplasmata forming stage starting at the early stationary growth phase in liquid GY (glucose yeast extract) medium or at the end of the exponential growth phase in liquid LB (Luria-Bertani) medium. There was a correlation between symplasmata formation and bacterial growth phase. When the medium was acidified, the cell growth rate was affected by the low pH of the medium, but the time required for symplasmata formation was not influenced by it. YS19 also formed symplasmata on agar medium, where more symplasmata were formed than in liquid medium. The volume of individual constitutional cells of symplasmata was sharply decreased by more than a half in comparison with that of the single cells existing before symplasmata formation. On all the media tested, YS19 formed symplasmata in most of the cell growth phases. The genome DNA/DNA homology between P. agglomerans YS19 and type strain P. agglomerans JCM1236^T (ATCC27155^T) was determined as 90.1%, confirming its membership of P. agglomerans. In order to investigate the phylogenetic relationships of YS19 at the intraspecific, intrageneric and super-generic level, the 16S rDNA similarities between strain YS19 and 17 other strains of Pantoea and 4 representatives of the closely related genera were analyzed. All the strains of Pantoea were clustered into 5 groups, and YS19 was clustered in a unique branch. The 16S rDNA similarity between YS19 and type strain JCM1236^T was 93.9%, much lower than the generally accepted value (=97%) for members of the same species, indicating that the 16S rDNA of YS19 has a distinct molecular characteristic.