Isolation and characterisation of cerium phosphate solubilising bacteria from Alpine paleosols

  • Sumayya Bashir Usman

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy

Abstract

Microorganisms contribute to human welfare in a variety of ways. The microbial involvement in agriculture is crucial since it involves biocontrol, nutrient recycling to improve plant stress tolerance, and amelioration of soil faults. In agricultural microbiology, microbes that increase phosphorus abundance remain a major subject of study. The various microbial solubilisation mechanisms found in microorganisms play a significant part in the worldwide cycling of insoluble organic and inorganic phosphate. The goal of this study is to identify and isolate the bacteria that are found in alpine soils that can solubilise cerium phosphate. On NBRIP, a phosphate-free medium, bacteria were isolated, and over the course of 34 days, the growth curves were ascertained. The cultures were continuously cultivated using methanol as a carbon source. Two isolates (SB1 and SB8) from the alpine paleosols were found to solubilise phosphate from CePO4. The isolates were identified as Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (SB1) and Bradyrhizobium sp (SB8). These bacteria's genomes underwent additional functional annotation, which made it possible to use state-of-the-art instruments like AlphaFold for in-depth structural analysis. Consequently, the XoxF and MxaF genes were modelled in three dimensions, providing insightful visualisations of their active regions. PyMOL played a key role in this approach by supporting the in-depth analysis of these gene areas.
Date of AwardJul 2024
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • Queen's University Belfast
SponsorsPetroleum Technology Development Fund
SupervisorChristopher C R Allen (Supervisor) & Deepak Kumaresan (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Phosphate-solubilisation
  • NBRIP
  • cerium phosphate
  • AlphaFold
  • PyMOL
  • XoxF
  • MxaF

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