[Evolution of Host-Beneficial Traits in Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria: Modeling and Construction of Systems for Interspecies Altruism].

Abstract

The literature and our own data on N2-fixing bacteria forming symbioses with plants and providing convenient models to study the evolution of interspecies (microsymbionts --> hosts) altruism are considered in the review. It is presented as a deeply reorganized intraspecies altruism implemented in the clonal population of rhizobia (bacteroids --> undifferentiated bacteria) under the control of kin selection induced by plant hosts. The analysis of this model suggests that it is possible to engineer practically valuable rhizobial strains in which high N2-fixing activity is combined with decreased survival outside of plants.