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  • Review Article
  • Published:

The versatility and adaptation of bacteria from the genus Stenotrophomonas

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 7, pages 514–525 (2009)Cite this article

Key Points

  • Stenotrophomonas spp. are found throughout the environment, particularly in close association with plants.

  • Currently, the genus comprises eight validly described species: Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Stenotrophomonas nitritireducens, Stenotrophomonas rhizophila, Stenotrophomonas acidaminiphila, Stenotrophomonas chelatiphaga, Stenotrophomonas koreensis, Stenotrophomonas terrae and Stenotrophomonas humi.

  • Stenotrophomonas spp. have an important ecological role in the nitrogen and sulphur cycles and several Stenotrophomonas spp. can engage in beneficial interactions with plants, promoting growth and protecting plants from attack.

  • These bacteria can degrade many xenobiotic compounds and so have the potential to be agents for bioremediation.

  • S. maltophilia is the only species of Stenotrophomonas that is known to cause human disease and is a cause of bacteraemia, septicaemia and severe lung infections in patients with cystic fibrosis.

  • S. maltophilia has also been shown to possess a cell–cell signalling system that is mediated by a diffusible signal factor and is involved in modulating the production of extracellular protease, biofilm behaviour and virulence.

  • Determination of the genome sequences of clinical and endophytic S. maltophilia strains has formed the basis for functional genomic analyses to test the contribution of specific functions to the tenacity of these bacteria in colonization, their broad resistance to antibiotics and their ability to enter into close associations with plants and humans.

Abstract

The genus Stenotrophomonas comprises at least eight species. These bacteria are found throughout the environment, particularly in close association with plants. Strains of the most predominant species, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, have an extraordinary range of activities that include beneficial effects for plant growth and health, the breakdown of natural and man-made pollutants that are central to bioremediation and phytoremediation strategies and the production of biomolecules of economic value, as well as detrimental effects, such as multidrug resistance, in human pathogenic strains. Here, we discuss the versatility of the bacteria in the genus Stenotrophomonas and the insight that comparative genomic analysis of clinical and endophytic isolates of S. maltophilia has brought to our understanding of the adaptation of this genus to various niches.

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Figure 1: Biotechnological uses of Stenotrophomonas spp.
Figure 2: Phylogenetic analysis of the eight validly described Stenotrophomonas species and related taxa.
Figure 3: Root and endosphere colonization by Stenotrophomonas rhizophila.
Figure 4: Genome maps of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia R551-3 and K279a.
Figure 5: Comparison of gene content and organization in the genomes of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia R551-3 and K279a.

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Acknowledgements

G.B. thanks C. Zachow, M. Hagemann, B. Lugtenberg and D. Egamberdieyeva; her research was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Austrian Science Foundation FWF and by the INTAS project 04-82-6969. Research by S.M., S.T. and D.v.d.L. was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, BER, project number KP1102010 under contract DE-AC02-98CH10886, by Laboratory Directed Research and Development funds (LDRD05-063 and LDRD09-005) and by Royalty Funds at the Brookhaven National Laboratory under contract with the US Department of Energy. M.B.A.'s work on S. maltophilia has been funded by the Wellcome Trust and the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. R.P.R. and J.M.D. are indebted to Y. McCarthy for helpful discussions. R.P.R. and J.M.D. were supported in part by grants awarded by the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI 03/IN3/B373 and 07/IN.1/B955 to J.M.D.). Sequencing of S. maltophilia R551-3 was performed under the auspices of the US Department of Energy's Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research Program, and by the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory under contract number DE-AC02-05CH11231, by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract number DE-AC52-07NA27344 and by Los Alamos National Laboratory under contract number DE-AC02-06NA25396.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, BIOMERIT Research Centre, BioSciences Institute, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Robert P. Ryan

  2. Biology Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, 11973-5000, New York, USA

    Sebastien Monchy, Safiyh Taghavi, Daniel van der Lelie & J. Maxwell Dow

  3. Institute for Environmental Biotechnology, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria

    Massimiliano Cardinale & Gabriele Berg

  4. Pathogen Sequencing Unit, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, CB10 1SA, Cambridge, UK

    Lisa Crossman

  5. Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, University of Bristol, School of Medical Sciences, University Walk, BS8 1TD, Bristol, UK

    Matthew B. Avison

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Correspondence to Robert P. Ryan.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (movie) | Root and endosphere colonization by Stenotrophomonas

Volume renderings of confocal laser scanning micrographs of DsRed–labeled Stenotrophomonas rhizophila DSM 14405T cells in the rhizosphere of tomato plants. a: colonization of 1–week–old tomato roots by S. rhizophila DSM 14405T Equipment and settings: Tomato seeds cv. Avicenna were incubated into an over night culture of DsRed–labeled S. rhizophila DSM 14405T for 12 h at room temperature, washed three times with sterile water and dried out. Treated seeds were placed into germination pouches (Mega International, MN, United States) added with 30 ml sterile tap water. The germination pouches were placed upright into a frame and incubated at 20°C and 60% humidity with 16 h light and 8 h dark for one week. Roots were removed from the pouches and directly analyzed under the microscope. The 8 bit images were acquired by a Leica TSC SP equipped with objectives PL FLUOTAR 25.0×0.75 OIL and HCX PL APO 63.0×1.32 OIL UV plus a digital zoom–factor of 1.96. DsRed protein was excited by a He-Ne laser (543 nm) and the detection–range was 574–673 nm, Excitation Beam Splitter TD 488/543/633. Panel a resolution and pixel size (60 sections): 400 × 400 × 100.9 μm (X, Y and Z, respectively) and 0.39 × 0.39 × 1.71 μm (X, Y and Z dimension, respectively); panel d resolution and pixel size (50 sections): 80.84 × 80.84 × 36.90 μm (X, Y and Z, respectively) and 0.09 × 0.09 × 0.75 μm (X, Y and Z dimension, respectively). The confocal stacks were imported in ImageJ (Rasband, W.S., ImageJ, U. S. National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/) and the brightness/contrast was equally adjusted in all optical slices. Image Surfer (Feng et al. 2007, J. Neurosci. 27: 12757–12760) was then used to visualize the stacks using the "volume rendering" method. The TIFF images were imported in Coral Draw X4 to be assembled, converted in CMYK color code and to add the text. (MOV 4478 kb)

41579_2009_BFnrmicro2163_MOESM2_ESM.pdf

Supplementary information S2 (table) | Region present in S. maltophilia K279a but absent from the R551-3 genome* (PDF 337 kb)

41579_2009_BFnrmicro2163_MOESM3_ESM.pdf

Supplementary information S3 (table) | Regions from the S. maltophilia R551-3 genome that are absent from the K279a genome* (PDF 365 kb)

41579_2009_BFnrmicro2163_MOESM4_ESM.pdf

Supplementary information S4 (table) | Putative and known heavy metal and antimicrobial drug resistance genes in the S. maltophilia K279a and R551-3 genome sequences (PDF 274 kb)

41579_2009_BFnrmicro2163_MOESM5_ESM.pdf

Supplementary information S5 (figure) | Comparison of the lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis gene cluster bordered by the etfA and metB genes found in the plant pathogens Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris and Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri with similar regions found in the poplar endophyte S. maltophilia R551-3 and the opportunistic pathogen S. maltophilia (PDF 310 kb)

Related links

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DATABASES

Entrez Genome Project

Bordetella pertussis

Caenorhabditis elegans

Escherichia coli

Klebsiella pneumoniae

Medicago sativa

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Rhizoctonia solani

Shewanella denitrificans

Solanum tuberosum

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia K279a

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia R551-3

Triticum astivum

Vibrio cholerae

Xanthomonas axonopodis

Xanthomonas campestris

Xylella fastidiosa

Zea mays

FURTHER INFORMATION

MaGe

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia K279a genome

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia 5513 genome

Glossary

Intraspecific heterogeneity

The quality of being diverse within a single species.

Rhizosphere

The zone around roots that is influenced by the plant and is a region of high microbial activity.

Endophytic

A microorganism that lives within a plant for at least part of its life cycle without causing apparent disease.

Epiphytic

Describes a bacterium that grows on or attaches to the surface of a living plant.

Phyllosphere

The micro-environment on the leaf surface of a plant.

Compatible solute

An organic compound that acts as a cytoplasmic solute to regulate water content for bacterial cells growing in environments of high osmolarity.

R body

A bacterial inclusion consisting of long proteinaceous ribbons rolled up inside the bacterial cell.

Phenolic compound

A chemical compound that is characterized by the presence of a hydroxyl group attached to a six-membered aromatic ring; many plants produce phenolic compounds.

Xenobiotic

A chemical that is only man-made, and otherwise is not found in the environment.

Biocontrol

The control of harmful pests and pathogens through the use of microorganisms.

Siderophore

A small organic molecule that is produced by bacteria to sequester iron.

Biotope

The natural environment of a microorganism.

Riboswitch

A conformational switch in RNA molecules that is induced by small metabolites and leads to a switch in gene regulatory function.

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Ryan, R., Monchy, S., Cardinale, M. et al. The versatility and adaptation of bacteria from the genus Stenotrophomonas. Nat Rev Microbiol 7, 514–525 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro2163

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