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Biochemical, functional and molecular characterization of pigeon pea rhizobia isolated from semi-arid regions of India

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Abstract

Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millspaugh) is among the top ten legumes grown globally not only having high tolerance to environmental stresses along, but also has the high biomass and productivity with optimal nutritional profiles. In the present study, 55 isolates of rhizobia were identified from 22 nodule samples of pigeon pea collected from semi-arid regions of India on the basis of morphological, biochemical, plant growth promoting activities and their ability to tolerate the stress conditions viz. pH, salt, temperature and drought stress. Amongst all the 55 isolates, 37 isolates showed effective nodulation under in vitro conditions in pigeon pea. Further, five isolates having multiple PGP activities and high in vitro symbiotic efficiency were subjected to 16S rRNA sequencing and confirmed their identities as Rhizobium, Mesorhizobium, Sinorhizobium sp. Further these 37 isolates were characterized at molecular level using ARDRA and revealed significant molecular diversity. Based on UPGMA clustering analysis, these isolates showed significant molecular diversity. The high degree of molecular diversity is due to mixed cropping of legumes in the region. The assessment of genetic diversity and molecular characterization of novel strains is a very important tool for the replacement of ineffective rhizobial strains with the efficient strains for the improvement in the nodulation and pigeon pea quality. The pigeon pea isolates with multiple PGPR activities could be further used for commercial production.

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Abbreviations

PCR:

Polymerase chain reaction

ARDRA:

Amplified 16S ribosomal DNA restriction analysis

PGPR:

Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria

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Acknowledgements

The financial assistance from All India Network Project on soil biodiversity and biofertilizers and Rastriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) are highly acknowledged. Ms. Suman Sanadhya greatfully acknowledges the CSIR for the SRF fellowship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

    Devendra Jain, Anisha Kumari, Heena Saheewala, Suman Sanadhya & Deepali Maheshwari

  2. Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India

    Ram Hari Meena

  3. Department of Biosciences, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

    Abhijeet Singh

  4. All India Network Project on Soil Biodiversity-Biofertilizers, Department of Microbiology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, 125004, India

    Rajesh Gera

  5. All India Network Project on Soil Biodiversity-Biofertilizers, ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, India

    S. R. Mohanty

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  1. Devendra Jain
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  2. Anisha Kumari
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  3. Heena Saheewala
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  9. S. R. Mohanty
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Contributions

DJ conceived and designed the experiments; AK, HS, SS, DM performed laboratory experiments; RHM performed pot studies; DJ and AS performed 16S rDNA sequencing and analysis; DJ, RG and SRM wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Devendra Jain.

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Communicated by Erko Stackebrandt.

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Jain, D., Kumari, A., Saheewala, H. et al. Biochemical, functional and molecular characterization of pigeon pea rhizobia isolated from semi-arid regions of India. Arch Microbiol 202, 1809–1816 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-020-01904-0

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