The University of York uses mass spectrometry to investigate symbiosis between leguminous plants and nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacteria
The department of chemistry at the University of York is using an Applied Biosystems API Qstar Pulsar hybrid LC/MS/MS mass spectrometer with a MicroIonSpray, a NanoSpray source and an oMaldi source to study the symbiosis between leguminous plants and nitrogen-fixing rhizobial bacteria.
Professor Jane Thomas-Oates explained: "We are working with groups in the Netherlands, Spain, and China on an EU funded project which aims to isolate rhizobia in the soil in China that will work in symbiosis with Chinese cultivars of soybean to form nitrogen fixing root nodules.
Specifically, we are looking at the bacterial signals that tell the plant to form nodules and at the proteins expressed by the plant in response to these bacterial signals, for which we rely heavily on the Qstar instrument, with both the electrospray and oMaldi sources.
At the end of the project we aim to produce inoculants commercially, in collaboration with local Chinese companies, that will be available to the local farmers to help them increase crop yields without the use of nitrogen based fertilisers.
It is a three year project and we have our first field experiments coming up this spring."
