Related Experiment Videos
Bacteroid formation in the Rhizobium-legume symbiosis
1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. voke+@pitt.edu
Current Opinion in Microbiology
|December 23, 1999
Abstract:
During the Rhizobium-legume symbiosis, bacteria enter the cells of host plants and differentiate into nitrogen-fixing bacteroids. Recent mutant screens and expression studies have revealed bacterial genes involved in the developmental pathway and demonstrate how the genetic requirements can vary from one host-microbe system to another. Whether bacteroids are terminally differentiated cells is an ongoing debate and new experimental systems are required to address this issue.