Table 2.

Symbiotic phenotypes of Medicago plants inoculated with virB mutants of S. meliloti KH46c and S. medicae M2

Host plant	Inoculated strain	Nodule numbera	Nodule dry mass (mg)	Plant dry mass (mg)	Plant height (cm)	Chlorophyll content (SPAD unit)
M. truncatula	KH46c wild-type	79	6.6	208	12.2	44
A17	KH46c ΔvirB6-9	38*	4.3*	145*	9.5*	43
	M2 wild-type	102	8.4	229	11.0	41
	M2 ΔvirB6-9	51	6.2*	202	11.2	44
	Uninoculated control	0	0	37	3.3	17
M. truncatula	KH46c wild-type	35	6.1	174	10.3	42
F83005-5	KH46c ΔvirB6-9	24	5.5	158	9.8	39
	M2 wild-type	29	4.9	156	9.5	43
	M2 ΔvirB6-9	22	6.7*	243*	10.7*	41
	Uninoculated control	0	0	44	3.3	16
M. tricycla	KH46c wild-type	24	12.2	315	10.5	36
R108-C3	KH46c ΔvirB6-9	12*	9.9	230	10.3	34
	M2 wild-type	11	2.8	33	4.2	19
	M2 ΔvirB6-9	12	3.1	33	4.2	21
	Uninoculated control	0	0	26	3.5	16
M. satvia cv	KH46c wild-type	56	1.6	95	8.5	54
Agate	KH46c ΔvirB6-9	42	6.8*	55	7.2	45*
	M2 wild-type	31	2.5	69	13.7	31
	M2 ΔvirB6-9	28	2.5	85	14.6	28*
	Uninoculated control	0	0	79	12.5	21

^aValues are per plant. The asterisk indicates a significant difference compared with the wild-type strain by t-test (P < 0.05) of three biological replicates.