Alanine accumulation in cells of endophyte Klebsiella terrigena Е6 under the nitrogen fixation

Possible metabolic pathways of carrying out the fixed N from bacteria-endophyte cells to non leguminous plants were investigated on a model strain ( Klebsiella terrigena Е6, colonizing the tissues of barley and sunflower). An original technical approach was realized in this experiment — the analysis of the main amino acids pool in bacterial cells for the detection of possible acceptor of glutamate ammonium group, generated during nitrogen fixation. The authors revealed, that alanine is dominant amino acid in K. terrigena Е6 cells in nitrogen fixation conditions (53.4 % of total amino acids). The addition of pyruvate to growing bacterial medium increased the alanine accumulation by 1.4 times. These data permit to suppose that ammonium group during nitrogen fixation in K. terrigena Е6 is transferred from glutamate to pyruvate, and formed alanine may serve as a carrier for fixed nitrogen transferred from bacterial cells to plant.