The rare occurrence of plant tissue culture contamination by Methylobacterium mesophilicum

Abstract

A pink-pigmented, facultative methylotrophic (PPFM) bacterium, Methylobacterium mesophilicum, which is found on the leaf surface of most plants, has been reported to be a covert contaminant of tissue cultures initiated from Glycine max (soybean) leaves and seeds by Holland and Polacco (1992). The bacteria can be detected as pink colonies when leaves are pressed or tissue culture homogenates are plated on a medium with methanol as the sole carbon source. Since the presence of contaminating bacteria can confound any biochemical results obtained with such cultures (Holland and Polacco 1992), we wanted to determine the extent of the contamination of our tissue cultures of soybean and other species. No PPFMs were detected in any soybean culture we have, and previous results describing the biochemical characteristics of ureide utilization by one of our soybean suspension cultures (27C) also indicates that PPFM bacteria were not present. Analysis of about 200 other strains of 11 different species maintained in this lab showed that only three of about 160 callus cultures, recently initiated from Datura innoxia leaves, contained PPFMs. The D. innoxia leaves did have PPFMs on their surface but in most cases they did not survive the surface disinfestation and culture regimes. Thus PPFM bacterial contamination should not be a serious problem in most plant tissue cultures.