Bacteriocin small of fast-growing rhizobia is chloroform soluble and is not required for effective nodulation.

Small bacteriocin is a low-molecular-weight bacteriocin which is common in fast-growing rhizobia. As its activity could not be detected in chloroform-sterilized culture supernatants (P.R. Hirsch, J. Gen. Microbiol. 113:219-228, 1979), the bacteriocin could not be purified in order to study its mechanism of action. We report here that small is soluble in chloroform, an observation which led to effective and simple (partial) purification. Other properties of small are its low molecular weight, which is estimated to be between 700 and 1,500, its resistance to proteolytic enzymes, pectinase, and lysozyme, and its heat stability at pH 5.5 but not at pH 7.0. Its bactericidal action on exponentially growing sensitive cells was not detected until 11 h after its addition. The bactericidal action was preceded by inhibition of cell division. To determine whether small activity is required for nodulation or nitrogen fixation, a transposon Tn5-induced small-negative mutant was isolated. The observation that this strain formed normal, acetylene-reducing root nodules showed that small production is not a prerequisite for the formation of effective nodules.