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. 2015 Jul 28:5:12293.
doi: 10.1038/srep12293.

Haloarchaea Endowed with Phosphorus Solubilization Attribute Implicated in Phosphorus Cycle

Ajar Nath Yadav  1 , Divya Sharma  1 , Sneha Gulati  1 , Surender Singh  1 , Rinku Dey  2 , Kamal Krishna Pal  2 , Rajeev Kaushik  1 , Anil Kumar Saxena  1
Affiliations

Haloarchaea Endowed with Phosphorus Solubilization Attribute Implicated in Phosphorus Cycle

Ajar Nath Yadav et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Archaea are unique microorganisms that are present in ecological niches of high temperature, pH and salinity. A total of 157 archaea were obtained from thirteen sediment, water and rhizospheric soil samples collected from Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India. With an aim to screen phosphate solubilizing archaea, a new medium was designed as Haloarchaea P Solubilization (HPS) medium. The medium supported the growth and P solubilization activity of archaea. Employing the HPS medium, twenty isolates showed the P-solubilization. Phosphate solubilizing archaea were identified as seventeen distinct species of eleven genera namely Haloarcula, Halobacterium, Halococcus, Haloferax, Halolamina, Halosarcina, Halostagnicola, Haloterrigena, Natrialba, Natrinema and Natronoarchaeum. Natrinema sp. strain IARI-WRAB2 was identified as the most efficient P-solubilizer (134.61 mg/L) followed by Halococcus hamelinensis strain IARI-SNS2 (112.56 mg/L). HPLC analysis detected seven different kinds of organic acids, namely: gluconic acid, citric acid, formic acid, fumaric acid succinic acid, propionic acid and tartaric acid from the cultures of these isolates. These phosphate solubilizing halophilic archaea may play a role in P nutrition to vegetation growing in these hypersaline soils. This is the first report for these haloarchaea to solubilize considerable amount of P by production of organic acids and lowering of pH.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Plates showing zone formation of P-solubilization by archaeal isolates with three different P sources viz: tri-calcium phosphate (TCP), hydroxyapatite (HA) and rock phosphate (RP).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Growth curves of five P-solubilizing archaeal isolates.
Bar represents the standard deviation (SD); specific growth rate (0.068, 0.028, 0.029, 0.028 and 0.028) and generation time (13.6, 26.6, 24.3, 25.1 and 25.8) for IARI-SNS2, IARI-WRAB2, IARI-SGAB1, IARI-MAAB1 and IARI-SNS3 respectively.
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) P-solubilization by halophilic archaeal isolates in presence of different P sources viz: tri-calcium phosphate, hydroxylapatite (HA) and rock phosphate (RP), LSD (P = 0.005) treatments × days: 129.8 for TCP; 1304 for HA and 4.32 for RP. (b) Drop in pH during P-solubilization.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Phylogenetic tree showing the relationships among 20 phosphate solubilizing archaea 16S rRNA gene sequences with reference sequences obtained through BLAST analysis.
The sequence alignment was performed using the CLUSTAL W program and trees were constructed using Maximum likelihood (ML) with algorithm using MEGA4 software (Tamura et al.36). The tree was rooted using Archaeoglobus veneficus (NR028831) as the outgroup.
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