Genome sequence of the Lotus spp. microsymbiont Mesorhizobium loti strain R7A

Simon Kelly; John Sullivan; Clive Ronson; Rui Tian; Lambert Bräu; Christine Munk; Lynne Goodwin; Cliff Han; Tanja Woyke; Tatiparthi Reddy; Marcel Huntemann; Amrita Pati; Konstantinos Mavromatis; Victor Markowitz; Natalia Ivanova; Nikos Kyrpides; Wayne Reeve

doi:10.1186/1944-3277-9-6

Genome sequence of the Lotus spp. microsymbiont Mesorhizobium loti strain R7A

Stand Genomic Sci. 2014 Dec 8:9:6. doi: 10.1186/1944-3277-9-6. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Simon Kelly¹, John Sullivan¹, Clive Ronson¹, Rui Tian², Lambert Bräu³, Christine Munk⁴, Lynne Goodwin⁴, Cliff Han⁴, Tanja Woyke⁵, Tatiparthi Reddy⁵, Marcel Huntemann⁵, Amrita Pati⁵, Konstantinos Mavromatis⁶, Victor Markowitz⁶, Natalia Ivanova⁵, Nikos Kyrpides⁷, Wayne Reeve²

Affiliations

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

Abstract

Mesorhizobium loti strain R7A was isolated in 1993 in Lammermoor, Otago, New Zealand from a Lotus corniculatus root nodule and is a reisolate of the inoculant strain ICMP3153 (NZP2238) used at the site. R7A is an aerobic, Gram-negative, non-spore-forming rod. The symbiotic genes in the strain are carried on a 502-kb integrative and conjugative element known as the symbiosis island or ICEMlSym(R7A). M. loti is the microsymbiont of the model legume Lotus japonicus and strain R7A has been used extensively in studies of the plant-microbe interaction. This report reveals that the genome of M. loti strain R7A does not harbor any plasmids and contains a single scaffold of size 6,529,530 bp which encodes 6,323 protein-coding genes and 75 RNA-only encoding genes. 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.