Novel, non-symbiotic isolates ofNeorhizobiumfrom a dryland agricultural soil
Semi-selective enrichment, followed by PCR screening, resulted in the successful direct isolation of fast-growing Rhizobia from a dryland agricultural soil. Over 50% of these isolates belong to the genusNeorhizobium, as concluded from partialrpoBand near-complete 16S rDNA sequence analysis. Further genotypic and genomic analysis of five representative isolates confirmed that they form a coherent group withinNeorhizobium, closer toN. galegaethan to the remainingNeorhizobiumspecies, but clearly differentiated from the former, and constituting at least one new genomospecies withinNeorhizobium.All the isolates lackednodandnifsymbiotic genes but contained arepABCreplication/maintenance region, characteristic of rhizobial plasmids, within large contigs from their draft genome sequences. TheserepABCsequences were related, but not identical, torepABCsequences found in symbiotic plasmids fromN. galegae, suggesting that the non-symbiotic isolates have the potential to harbor symbiotic plasmids. This is the first report of non-symbiotic members ofNeorhizobiumfrom soil.