Mesorhizobium alhagi, a legume-symbiont soil bacterium that forms nodules with the desert plant Alhagi sparsifolia, can produce large amounts of exopolysaccharide (EPS) using mannitol as carbon source. However, the role of EPS in M. alhagi CCNWXJ12-2T, an EPS-producing rhizobium with high salt resistance, remains uncharacterized. Here, we studied the role of EPS in M. alhagi CCNWXJ12-2T using EPS-deficient mutants constructed by transposon mutagenesis. The insertion sites of six EPS-deficient mutants were analyzed using single primer PCR, and two putative gene clusters were found to be involved in EPS synthesis. EPS was extracted and quantified, and EPS production in the EPS-deficient mutants was decreased by approximately 25 times compared with the wild-type strain. Phenotypic analysis revealed reduced salt resistance, antioxidant capacity, and cell motility of the mutants compared with the wild-type strain. In conclusion, our results indicate that EPS can influence cellular Na+ content and antioxidant enzyme activity, as well as play an important role in the stress adaption and cell motility of M. alhagi CCNWXJ12-2T.
Keywords: Antioxidant capacity; Cell motility; Exopolysaccharide; Mesorhizobium alhagi; Mini-Tn5.