What Do We Know About the Publications Related with Azospirillum? A Metadata Analysis.

Azospirillum is one of the most successful plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) genera and it is considered a study model for plant-bacteria interactions. Because of that, a wide broad of topics has been boarded and discussed in a significant number of publications in the last four decades. Using the Scopus® database, we conducted a bibliographic search in order to analyze the number and type of publications, the authors responsible of these contributions, and the origin of the researchers, as well as the keywords and journals selected by the authors, among other related characteristics, with the aim to understand some less addressed details about the work done with Azospirillum worldwide since its discovery in 1925. Despite that the largest numbers of publications about this bacterium were obtained between the 1970 and 1980s, there is still a linear increase tendency in the number of published works. Understanding the mechanisms involved in the ability of these bacteria to promote growth in a wide broad of plant species under both laboratory and field conditions has been a preferential target for these published articles. This tendency could be considered a cause or consequence of the current increase in the number of commercial products formulated with Azospirillum around the world and a catalyzer for the increase of published articles along time.

New insights into auxin metabolism in Bradyrhizobium japonicum.

Bacterial metabolism of phytohormones includes several processes such as biosynthesis, catabolism, conjugation, hydrolysis and homeostatic regulation. However, only biosynthesis and occasionally catabolism are studied in depth in microorganisms. In this work, we evaluated and reconsidered IAA metabolism in Bradyrhizobiumjaponicum E109, one of the most widely used strains for soybean inoculation around the world. The genomic analysis of the strain showed the presence of several genes responsible for IAA biosynthesis, mainly via indole-3-acetonitrile (IAN), indole-3-acetamide (IAM) and tryptamine (TAM) pathways. However; in vitro experiments showed that IAA is not accumulated in the culture medium in significant amounts. On the contrary, a strong degradation activity was observed after exogenous addition of 0.1 mM of IAA, IBA or NAA to the medium. B. japonicum E109 was not able to grow in culture medium containing IAA as a sole carbon source. In YEM medium, the bacteria degraded IAA and hydrolyzed amino acid auxin conjugates with alanine (IAAla), phenylalanine (IAPhe), and leucine (IAPhe), releasing IAA which was quickly degraded. Finally, the presence of exogenous IAA induced physiological changes in the bacteria such as increased biomass and exopolysaccharide production, as well as infection effectiveness and symbiotic behavior in soybean plants.