Bioprospection of Mammaliicoccus sciuri Strain TRQ48 as a Plant-Growth-Promoting Bacteria Associated with Wheat (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum) in the Yaqui Valley, Mexico

Abstract

Bioprospecting of plant growth-promoting bacteria enables the identification of beneficial microbial resources with significant potential for sustainable agricultural applications. In this context, strain TRQ48 was isolated from a commercial field of wheat (Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum) located in the Yaqui Valley, Mexico, with the aim of exploring its plant growth-promoting potential. The draft genome sequence presented a genomic size of 2,777,016 bp, 32.5% G + C content, 665,763 bp N50, 2 L50, and 19 contigs. Taxonomic affiliation demonstrated that strain TRQ48 belonged to Mammaliicoccus sciuri. Genome annotation identified 2756 coding DNA sequences (CDS) distributed into 259 subsystems, highlighting CDS associated with iron acquisition and metabolism, stress response, and virulence, disease, and defense, among others. Metabolic assays reflect the strain’s capacity to produce siderophores and auxins, relating these positive traits to significantly (p ≤ 0.05) promote growth of wheat shoot length (7.09%) and root and shoot dry weight (75% and 18.43%) compared to uninoculated wheat plants. Biosafety testing indicated that the strain is susceptible to commonly used antibiotics and lacks clinically relevant resistance profiles, matching genomic analysis, which did not reveal any critical virulence factors. Thus, although the presented results show that M. sciuri TRQ48 is a promising beneficial biosafe strain, further studies are still needed to evaluate its performance under agro-ecosystems at commercial levels.