Fig 4. The three chemotaxis systems are important for rhizosphere colonization.
Competitive colonization root-tip assay of P. fluorescens F113 and isogenic mutants affected in either of the cheA genes. Equal amounts (108 cells) of F113 and its competitors were inoculated per plant. F113 was also compared with an isogenic strain tagged with a kanamycin resistance gene as a control. Experiments were done in triplicate with 20 plants in each experiment. Different letters indicate statistically significant differences (p<0.05).