Agrobacterium are Alphaproteobacteria common in most soils that closely interact with plants in two respects. Firstly, and as a general trait of the whole taxon, they are rhizospheric bacteria saprophytically living in the root environment (i.e. rhizosphere) of numerous plants. Rhizospheric interactions are generally considered to be of commensal type with no detrimental effect to the plant, bu...

Plant transformation technology has become a versatile platform for cultivar improvement as well as for studying gene function in plants. The development of an efficient method for genetic transformation is a prerequisite for the application of molecular biology to the improvement of a given crop species. Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation is the dominant technology used for the prod...

Nonpolar virB mutants of Agrobacterium tumefaciens were tested for RSF1010 mobilization and extracellular complementation. virB2 to virB11 were essential for transfer in both assays. virB1 was essential only for high frequency transfer of RSF1010 and VirE2. Coordinated transfer of a preassembled T complex is supported by these data and competition studies.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) isolated from Agrobacterium tumefaciens inhibited tumor induction by virulent bacteria. LPS from site-binding strains was not effective if added to the plant wound shortly after the bacteria, and LPS from avirulent, non-site-binding strains of Agrobacterium was not inhibitory regardless of the order of addition. However, LPS and whole cells of avirulent strains NT1 and ...

Two groups independently sequenced the Agrobacterium tumefaciens C58 genome in 2001. We report here consolidation of these sequences, updated annotation, and additional analysis of the evolutionary history of the linear chromosome, which is apparently limited to the biovar I group of Agrobacterium.