Plants use methionine for the production of ethylene, an important plant
hormone. Previous studies have reported that high levels of methionine
affects the rhizosphere bacterial population involved in soil nitrogen
fixation. Thus, Jingang Liang of Nanjing Agricultural University (China) and
colleagues examined if the transgenic line of Zigongdongdou soybean cultivar
(ZD91) with improved methionine production could affect the populations of
rhizosphere bacteria.

The researchers used 16S rRNA gene-based pyrosequencing analysis of the V4
region and DNA extracted from bacterial consortia collected from the
rhizosphere of soybean plants grown in an agricultural field at the
pod-setting stage and characterized the population structure of the
bacterial communities. It was found that the dominant taxonomic groups were
Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi,
Planctomycetes, Gemmatimonadetes, Firmicutes, and Verrucomicrobia. They did
not find any statistically significant difference in the rhizosphere
bacterial community structure between the non-transgenic and transgenic
cultivars.

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