Development of an Engineered Soil Bacterium Enabling to Convert Both Insoluble Inorganic and Organic Phosphate into Plant Available Phosphate and Its Use as a Biofertilizer

Phosphorus (P) is one of the most important nutrient elements for plant growth and metabolism. We previously isolated a P-solubilizing bacterium 9320-SD with the ability to utilize inorganic P and convert it into plant-available P. The present study aims to enhance the P-solubilizing capacity of 9320-SD, as our long-term goal is to develop a more effective P-solubilizing bacterial strain for use as a biofertilizer. In this end, we introduced a bacterial phytase encoding gene into 9320-SD. One randomly selected transformant, SDLiuTP02, was examined for recombinant protein expression and phytase activity, and assessed for its ability to promote plant growth. Our results indicate that SDLiuTP02 is capable of expressing high levels of phytase activity. Importantly, corn seedlings treated with the SDLiuTP02 cell culture exhibited increased rates of photosynthesis, transpiration, and stomatal conductance as well as increased growth rate under laboratory conditions and increased growth rate in pot assays compared to seedlings treated with cell cultures of the parental strain 9320-SD. Field experiments further indicated that application of SDLiuTP02 promoted a greater growth rate in young cucumber plant and a higher foliar chlorophyll level in chop suey greens when compared to 9320-SD treated controls. These results indicate that SDLiuTP02 has the potential to be a more effective P biofertilizer to increase agricultural productivity.