• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.1349-1360
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• 2015

The rhizospheric zone abutting plant roots usually clutches a wealth of microbes. In the recent past, enormous genetic resources have been excavated with potential applications in host plant interaction and ancillary aspects. Two Pseudomonas strains were isolated and identified through 16S rRNA and rpoD sequence analyses as P. fluorescens QAU67 and P. putida QAU90. Initial biochemical characterization and their root-colonizing traits indicated their potential role in plant growth promotion. Such aerobic systems, involved in gluconic acid production and phosphate solubilization, essentially require the pyrroloquinoline quinine (PQQ)-dependent glucose dehydrogenase (GDH) in the genome. The PCR screening and amplification of GDH and PQQ and subsequent induction of mutagenesis characterized their possible role as antioxidants as well as in growth promotion, as probed in vitro in lettuce and in vivo in rice, bean, and tomato plants. The results showed significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) in parameters of plant height, fresh weight, and dry weight, etc., deciphering a clear and in fact complementary role of GDH and PQQ in plant growth promotion. Our study not only provides direct evidence of the in vivo role of GDH and PQQ in host plants but also reveals their functional inadequacy in the event of mutation at either of these loci.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.323-328
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• 2006

Serratia marcescens W1, isolated from cucumber-cultivated soil in Suwon, Korea, evidenced profound antifungal activity and produced the extracellular hydrolytic enzymes, chitinase and protease. In order to isolate the antifungal genes from S. marcescens W1, a cosmid genomic library was constructed and expressed in Escherichia coli. Transformants exhibiting chitinase and protease expression were selected, as well as those transformants evidencing antifungal effects against the rice blast fungus, Magnaporthe grisea, and the cucumber leaf spot fungus, Cercospora citrullina. Cosmid clones expressing chitinase or protease exerted no inhibitory effects against the growth of fungal pathogens. However, two cosmid clones evidencing profound antifungal activities were selected for further characterization. An 8.2 kb HindIII fragment from these clones conditioned the expression of antagonistic activity, and harbored seven predicted complete open reading frames(ORFs) and two incomplete ORFs. The deduced amino acid sequences indicated that six ORFs were highly homologous with genes from S. marcescens generating pyrroloquinoline quinone(PQQ). Only subclones harboring the full set of pqq genes were shown to solubilize insoluble phosphate and inhibit fungal pathogen growth. The results of this study indicate that the functional expression of the pqq genes of S. marcescens W1 in E. coli may be involved in antifungal activity, via as-yet unknown mechanisms.