Protease encoding microbial communities and protease activity of the rhizosphere and bulk soils of two maize lines with different N uptake efficiency

Published Date

May 2016, Vol.96:176–179, doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2016.02.001

Short communication

Title 

Protease encoding microbial communities and protease activity of the rhizosphere and bulk soils of two maize lines with different N uptake efficiency

• Author 

• Divyashri Baraniya ^a,,
• Edoardo Puglisi ^b
• Maria Teresa Ceccherini ^a
• Giacomo Pietramellara ^a
• Laura Giagnoni ^a
• Mariarita Arenella ^a
• Paolo Nannipieri ^a
• Giancarlo Renella ^a

• aDepartment of Agrifood Production and Environmental Sciences, University of Florence, Piazzale delle Cascine 28, 50144 Florence, Italy
• bIstituto di Microbiologia, Facoltà di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari ed Ambientali, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Via Emilia Parmense 84, 29122 Piacenza, Italy

Received 3 September 2015. Revised 28 January 2016. Accepted 8 February 2016. Available online 22 February 2016.

Highlights

• •
  Rhizosphere and bulk soil from maize plants with different NUEs are studied.
• •
  Soil proteolytic communities are studied using DGGE, Illumina sequencing and qPCR.
• •
  Higher NUE plant harbor higher abundance and diversity of proteolytic communities.
• •
  Most of the neutral protease gene sequences belong to uncultured bacterial species.
• •
  Rhizosphere effect due to different NUEs is stronger on apr gene than on npr gene.

Abstract

This study was carried out to understand the interplay of plant Nitrogen Utilizing Efficiency (NUE) with protease activity and microbial proteolytic community composition in the rhizosphere and bulk soils. Protease activity, diversity and abundance of protease genes (using DGGE and qPCR respectively of two key bacterial protease encoding genes: alkaline metallo-peptidase (apr) and neutral-metallopeptidases (npr)) were monitored in both rhizosphere and bulk soils from two maize in-bred lines L05 and T250 with higher and lower NUE respectively, using a rhizobox approach. Illumina sequencing was employed to assess the diversity of proteolytic communities encoding for the above-mentioned protease genes. Our results show higher enzyme activity, higher abundance and diversity of proteolytic genes in L05 maize rhizosphere, with higher NUE than in T250 maize rhizosphere.

Keywords

• Nitrogen use efficiency
• Rhizosphere
• Protease activity
• Protease encoding genes
• Illumina sequencing
• PCR-DGGE

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• ∗ 
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