Exploring the Potential of Four Novel Halotolerant Bacterial Strains as Plant-Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) under Saline Conditions

作者：Gianmaria Oliva, Luca Di Stasio, Giovanni Vigliottá, Francesco Guarino, Angela Cicatelli, Stefano Castiglione · 发表于：Applied Sciences · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.3390/app13074320 · 被引用次数：26 · 研究领域：Plant-Microbe Interactions and Immunity、Legume Nitrogen Fixing Symbiosis、Plant tissue culture and regeneration

Soil salinity, due to natural phenomena or human activities, alters the water potential, which in turn affects plant growth, negatively influencing their nutrient and water uptake. Plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) can be used to counteract these negative effects, especially in glycophytes. The aim of our study was to characterize physiologically, genetically, and biochemically the novel halotolerant/halophilic bacteria isolated in our previous work. We evaluated the plant-growth-promoting (PGP) features and NaCl regulation’s roles in them. In this regard, analysis based on 16S rDNA sequences confirmed that our isolates are distinct bacterial strains, probably belonging to new species, which we named Bacillus sp. M21 and M23 and Halomonas sp. QH23 and QH24. In literature, it is known that many species of Halomonas and Bacillus genera produce factors regulating plant development, such as indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), ammonium, and siderophores; and their efficiency in promoting plant growth and productivity was also demonstrated in vivo. We demonstrated that the newly isolated strains exhibit different PGP activities, highlighting how the latter are regulated by NaCl and in a strain-dependent manner. In particular, the main results showed that NaCl negatively affects the production of IAA in QH23, M21 and M23, whereas it promotes it in QH24, where it is strictly salt-dependent. Both Halomonas strains produce ammonium only in the presence of NaCl, directly correlated to...