INVESTIGADORES
MARTINI Maria Carla
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
From time to time the same questions: ?Who? are rhizobia?, What do they do?, How actively they evolve?.....static pictures for moving genomes?
Autor/es:
LAGARES, ANTONIO; DEL PAPA, M. FLORENCIA; PISTORIO, MARIANO; DRAGHI, WALTER; LOZANO, MAURICIO; GIUSTI, M. ANGELES; TORRES TEJERIZO, GONZALO; SALAS, M. EUGENIA; MARTINI, M. CARLA; LÓPEZ, JOSÉ; SALTO, ILEANA
Lugar:
Mar del Plata
Reunión:
Congreso; VII congreso de microbiología general, SAMIGE; 2012
Institución organizadora:
SAMIGE
Resumen:
Bacteria colonize quite diverse environments and are well
recognized by their remarkable capacity to sense, adapt, and respond to
different (and in cases challenging) extracellular conditions. While cells in
multicellular organisms evolved to perform specific functions under carefully
controlled conditions (homeostasis), bacteria -as unicellular organisms- learned
on how to live most of their life time under changing and frequently
contrasting environments. For these reasons, bacteria represent valuable
systems to investigate strategies of short and long term processes of
adaptation. In this context of analysis, bacteria with both free- and
associative-style of life provide extraordinary possibilities to investigate
how cells cyclically accommodate to contrasting extracellular conditions.
In our laboratory we study since more than two decades
the biology and biochemistry of rhizobia; gram negative bacteria that live in
the underground and associate with the roots of legumes where they fix
atmospheric nitrogen receiving and, in turn, use photosynthetic carbon. We will
present ?with their pros and cons- classical and modern experimental
approaches to characterize adaptive responses of rhizobia to stressing
environments. We will discuss what we learned on transient adaptive responses to
stress, how they affect the free living and the symbiosis, and the possibilities
to explore their practical use for a better formulation of biofertilizers.
Finally, we will discuss the use of genome-wide
comparative genomic analyses to investigate long-term changes in rhizobia, and
their associated behavioral consequences. We will analyze the general
mechanisms that model rhizobial diversification, and show how they are evident
with data that we collected from the analysis of chromosomes and plasmids (sym and cryptic) in the Medicago spp.-nodulating rhizobia.
Evidences currently available on the rhizobial
genomics will be discussed to help the audience thinking on the identity and diversity
of the legume nodulating bacteria.