Frankia forms infection threads

Abstract

Frankia forms symbioses with a great variety of plant hosts, and because nodule development is under plant control, this results in an interesting diversity in the structure of developing symbiotic cells. However, it is apparent that, in all these symbioses, the microsymbiont Frankia follows a similar pattern of development within symbiotic cells of the nodule: the cell is invaded by formation of an infection thread containing invasive hyphae sheathed in plant cell wall material, parasitic vegetative hyphae proliferate by branching from this infection thread, and N2-fixing symbiotic vesicles differentiate from tips of these vegetative hyphae. Infection threads are recognized by their ontogeny and morphology, being the cell-invasive structures in the case of the former and straight-growing hyphae in the case of the latter. Formation of infection threads is a feature shared in common with legumes. Unlike in legumes, the infection thread in actinorhizae is not defined by the presence of sheathing plant cell wall material; all forms of the bacterium have this. Rather than using the term "encapsulation," which suggests a bacterial origin, it is proposed the term "interfacial matrix" be used to describe this plant cell wall material separating Frankia from host cytoplasm.Key words: Frankia, infection thread, interfacial matrix, microsymbiont, nodule, symbiosis.