Complete genome sequence of rhizobium leguminosarum bv. trifolii strain WSM1325, an effective microsymbiont of annual Mediterranean clovers

Rhizobium leguminosarum bv trifolii is a soil-inhabiting bacterium that that has the capacity to be an effective nitrogen fixing microsymbiont of a diverse range of annual Trifolium (clover) species. Strain WSM1325 is an aerobic, motile, non-spore forming, Gram-negative rod isolated from root nodules collected in 1993 from the Greek Island of Serifos. WSM1325 is manufactured commercially in Australia as an inoculant for a broad range of annual clovers of Mediterranean origin due to its superior attributes of saprophytic competence, nitrogen fixation and acid-tolerance. Here we describe the basic features of this organism, together with the complete genome sequence, and annotation. This is the first completed genome sequence for a microsymbiont of annual clovers. We reveal that its genome size is 7,418,122 bp encoding 7,232 protein-coding genes and 61 RNA-only encoding genes. This multipartite genome contains 6 distinct replicons; a chromosome of size 4,767,043 bp and 5 plasmids of size 828,924, 660,973, 516,088, 350,312 and 294,782 bp.

Influence of grain size and training temperature on strain of polycrystalline Ni50Mn29Ga21 samples

The alloy Ni-Mn-Ga aroused great interest for application as a magnetic shape memory (MSM) material. This effect is caused by reorientation of twin variants by an external magnetic field. So far, most of the experiments were concentrated on single crystals. But, the MSM effect can also be realised in polycrystals which can be prepared much more efficiently. Here, polycrystalline samples were prepared by directional solidification with a <100> fibre texture of the high temperature cubic austenitic phase parallel to the heat flow. Afterwards, a heat treatment was applied for chemical homogenisation and stress relaxation in the austenitic state. Then the samples were heated up to the austenitic state and cooled down under load. The microstructure was analysed by Electron Back Scatter Diffraction (EBSD) before and after that treatment. Mechanical training at room temperature and 40°C was tracked by recording stress-strain curves. By increasing the number of training cycles the strain also increases. The influence of different training temperatures was investigated on samples with different grain sizes.