Aspects of Plant-Microbe Interactions in Heavy Metal Polluted Soil

Abstract

The role of soil microbiota, specifically rhizospheric microorganisms, in the development of phytoremediation techniques has to be elucidated in order to speed up the process and to optimize the rate of mobilization/absorption of pollutants. To meet such a purpose, several heavy metal resistant bacterial strains were isolated from a contaminated soil and from the rhizosphere of some spontaneous plants grown therein, such as Brassica sp., Trifolium repens, Trifolium pratense and Chenopodium album. Colonization of the rhizosphere is known to be helpful for bacteria, but their presence is also supposed to be functional to the plants, especially if in connection with their ability to produce Plant Growth Promoting (PGP) compounds (e.g. indole-acetic acid) or to protect the plant from pathogens. Therefore, in such an adverse environment, plants and bacteria surely take advantage by cooperating. Several bacterial isolates were tested and found to be capable of producing PGP compounds. Among them, a highly heavy metal resistant strain (Br-10) was isolated from the roots of a spontaneous plant belonging to the Brassicaceae family, whose members are known to accumulate heavy metals, and identified by phenotypic tests and 16S rDNA analysis as Serratia plymuthica. To evaluate its putative biocontrol activity, a screening of its antagonistic properties against various soil phytopathogens was also undertaken. Among the pathogenic fungi tested, a strain of Phytophtora megasperma f. sp. glycinea was found to be sensitive. Preliminary investigations of Br-10 resistance mechanisms, performed through hybridization studies on genomic DNA, suggested for S. plymuthica strain Br-10 the existence of a resistance mechanism different from that codified by the well-known czc gene cluster of Alcaligenes eutrophus that encodes for cadmium, zinc and cobalt resistance through an efflux system. By the use of Inductively Coupled Plasma analysis Cd was found to be preferentially adsorbed or accumulated rather than being forced out of the cell or not imported at all. Growth kinetics studies revealed that increasing Cd levels do not seem to affect cell growth up to the stationary phase, while having a clear impact on cell viability during the stationary phase.