Bacteria found in space has associated effects on agricultural plants

Four strains belonging to the Methylobacteriacea isolated on two consecutive flights on the International Space Station (ISS) may have an effect associated with agriculture. This is what an article points out, written by researchers Swati Bijlani, Nitin K. Singh, VV Ramprasad Eedara, Appa Rao Podile, Christopher E. Mason, Clay CC Wang and Kasthuri Venkateswaran, published last Monday (15/03) in Frontiers in Microbiology.

According to the study, “the genus Methylobacterium consists of 45 recognized species, present in a wide variety of habitats, including air, soil, freshwater and sediments, and can exist in free form or associated with plant tissues.” They are involved in nitrogen fixation, phosphate solubilization, abiotic stress tolerance, plant growth promotion and biocontrol activity against plant pathogens.

“For example, a new Methylobacterium sp. 2A resulted in higher lateral root density in inoculated potato crops, even under salt stress conditions, compared to control plants that were not inoculated with the bacteria; it has also been found to exhibit biocontrol activity against several plant pathogens ( Grossi et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, genomic analysis of Methylobacterium sp. 2A revealed the presence of metabolic pathways involved in promoting plant growth, including genes for the production of an auxin, 3-indole acetic acid (Grossi et al., 2020)”, says another excerpt from the article.

In an ongoing microbial tracking experiment on the International Space Station (ISS), four strains belonging to the Methylobacteriaceae family were isolated ( Checinska Sielaff et al., 2019 ). Some of the Methylobacterium species that are phylogenetically related to these ISS strains have been isolated from plant sources (Kang et al., 2007; Chaudhry et al., 2016), indicating that ISS strains may also exhibit properties related to growth promotion. of plants.

The full study here