GENOME MINING APPROACHES TO UNVEIL THE FULL POTENTIAL OF THE PGPR ISOLATE Methylobacterium sp. 2A

FEDERICO SERRAL; IVÁN GITMAN; CECILIA E. M. GROSSI; RITA M. ULLOA

Congreso; 1st Congress of Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science Latin America; 2020

Genomic analysis has become an established tool in the characterization of plant-beneficial microbes since it offers the opportunity to study the full arsenal of a strain. Methylobacterium sp. 2A is a plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) isolated from roots of potato plants that has important biotechnological features such as plant growth promotion and biocontrol activities. Its genome sequence was previously obtained and, briefly, it has 6.39 Mb comprising 6,142 coding DNA sequences. A comparative genomic analysis was performed to explore unique features in the 2A genome and its similarity with four related members of the genus; a core-genome of 3,650 genes was identified, while 937 genes were exclusive of this isolate. In the Methylobacterium sp. 2A assembly, 28 genomic islands were detected (560,218 bp) representing 8.75% of the entire genome. Among the 482 protein-coding genes located in the genomic islands, 182 genes encode proteins of unassigned function and 48 genes encode transposon-related proteins. Interestingly, the Methylobacterium sp. 2A genome harbours a horizontally-transferred genomic island that codifies the nodulation protein nolO which has high similarity to Phaselicystis flava MSr931. We also detected genes potentially associated with mercury, arsenic, chromate and copper/silver resistance that could be involved in the rhizosphere adaptability of Methylobacterium sp. 2A. Furthermore, we integrated this list with the pan-genome data. The data presented in this work provides further valuable information of the Methylobacterium sp. 2A genome to unveil its full potential.