Abstract
Azospirillum brasilense swims in liquid environments and swarms in semisolid media. Five variants of A. brasilense Sp245, Sp245.P1-Sp245.P5, which swarmed faster than Sp245 in a semisolid malate-salt medium, have been isolated. In Sp245.P1-Sp245.P4, a new megaplasmid was revealed instead of an indigenous 85-MDa plasmid (p85). By polymerase chain reactions (PCR) with primers to the segments of p85 important for proper bacterial motility/flagellation and for dissimilatory nitrite and NO reduction, that DNA of p85 was found retained by all the variants. In ERIC- and RAPD-PCR, microdiversity between the total DNAs of Sp245 and its variants was detected. Interstrain differences in growth characteristics in liquid peptone-succinate-salt medium with KNO3 or KNO2 and in KNO2 production/consumption were revealed. Although all the variants swam and swarmed faster than Sp245 in the medium supplemented with NH4Cl or KNO3, not all of them could do so in MPSS with KNO2.