Monitoring of Horizontal Gene Transfer from Agricultural Microorganisms to Soil Bacteria and Analysis of Microbial Community in Soils

To investigate the possibility of horizontal gene transfer between agricultural microorganisms and soil microorganisms in the environment, Bacillus subtilis KB producing iturin and the PGPR recombinant strain Pseudomonas fluorescens MX1 were used as model microorganisms. The soil samples of cucumber or tomato plants cultivated in pots and the greenhouse for a six month period were investigated by PCR, real-time PCR, Southern hybridization, and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) fingerprinting. Our data from Southern blotting and TRFLP patterns suggest that the model bacteria do not give significant impacts on the other bacteria in the pots and greenhouse during cultivation.