Symbiotic effectiveness of antibiotic-resistant mutants of fast- and slow-growing strains of Rhizobium nodulating Lotus species

Abstract

Mutants resistant ot 16 individual antibiotics were isolated from two fast-growing and two slow-growing strains of Lotus rhizobia and their symbiotic effectiveness on Lotus pedunculatus evaluated. Resistance to streptomycin, spectinomycin, chloramphenicol, and tetracycline (inhibitors of protein synthesis) was associated with little or no loss of effectiveness with all four strains but resistance to nalidixic acid and rifampicin (inhibitors of nucleic acid synthesis), and to D-cycloserine, novobiocin, and penicillin (inhibitors of cell wall-cell membrane synthesis) was associated with significant loss of effectiveness in 20-100% of the mutants. Resistance to viomycin, neomycin, kanamycin, and vibramycin was associated with loss of effectiveness with mutants of the two fast-growing strains but not with mutants of the two slow-growing strains. When tested on four alternate host legumes individual mutants of a slow-growing strain showed significantly different levels of effectiveness. The results suggest that both the inherent characteristics of the bacterium and of the host plant will influence the symbiotic effectiveness of antibiotic-resistant mutants of Rhizobium.