Isolation, characterization, and complementation of Rhizobium meliloti 104A14 mutants that lack glutamine synthetase II activity.

The glutamine synthetase (GS)-glutamate synthase pathway is the primary route used by members of the family Rhizobiaceae to assimilate ammonia. Two forms of glutamine synthetase, GSI and GSII, are found in Rhizobium and Bradyrhizobium species. These are encoded by the glnA and glnII genes, respectively. Starting with a Rhizobium meliloti glnA mutant as the parent strain, we isolated mutants unable to grow on minimal medium with ammonia as the sole nitrogen source. For two auxotrophs that lacked any detectable GS activity, R. meliloti DNA of the mutated region was cloned and partially characterized. Lack of cross-hybridization indicated that the cloned regions were not closely linked to each other or to glnA; they therefore contain two independent genes needed for GSII synthesis or activity. One of the cloned regions was identified as glnII. An R. meliloti glnII mutant and an R. meliloti glnA glnII double mutant were constructed. Both formed effective nodules on alfalfa. This is unlike the B. japonicum-soybean symbiosis, in which at least one of these GS enzymes must be present for nitrogen-fixing nodules to develop. However, the R. meliloti double mutant was not a strict glutamine auxotroph, since it could grow on media that contained glutamate and ammonia, an observation that suggests that a third GS may be active in this species.